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Chestnuts and Chrysanthemums

Bonjour to you all

The beginning of November here in the Tarn has seen a dramatic end to the balmy warm days we have experienced through October. The sunny days with the thermometer hovering above 20°C have been replaced with an almost 10° drop overnight and regular downpours of rain. We can’t complain having had several lovely warm weeks, with enough sunshine to ripen the second batch of figs, but weirdly and perhaps worryingly it also encouraged my strawberries to flower for a third time! We have frost threatened towards the end of the week so I hope the plants will be OK. I have managed to plant quite a few Spring bulbs and tidy some of the flowerbeds and will continue between rain showers this week. We also now have tons of leaves everywhere as the trees start to shed their summer plumage, so another job added to the list. What I didn’t do in October was pluck up the courage to have a swim as the pool is now a bracing 16°C! Cold water swimming is supposed to be amazing and I love swimming in the sea, but somehow there always seems to be something else to do first. I am still deliberating whether to give it a very quick go before we put the pool to bed for the winter. We did have an unusual visitor to the pool, probably unintentionally while hunting – a fire salamander. These creatures are stunning to look at, but definitely not to touch as their skin is very toxic to deter predators. They like to hide in fallen leaves and spend a lot of their time hidden under wood, so our little copse is a haven given the amount of fallen wood and leaves! They tend to be active in the evening and at night, apart from when it rains when they are out and about during the day too. This little one was rescued from one of the pool’s skimmers alive and well fortunately, and wandered off to carry on with its day.

November 1st is La Toussaint (All Saints Day) in France, a national holiday and a day to remember those we have lost. La Toussaint is an abbreviation of ‘tous les saints’, originally a Catholic festival to honour saints. All Souls’ Day on November 2nd was traditionally when the dead were remembered but over time the 1st became the day of remembrance. Families gather together in France to pay their respects to deceased relatives and spend the day together. Chrysanthemums appear everywhere, a riot of colour, as these, along with cyclamens, are the plants that are placed at graves here in France for La Fête de la Toussaint.  Chrysanthemums signify love and long life which is possibly why they are the flower of choice but this too is a long held tradition and no-one seems quite sure of its origin.

What have we been up to since I last recounted our adventures to you? Over the last 2 weeks we have been tackling the garden, catching up with lawn mowing and weeding amongst other jobs. I have also redesigned the potager, increasing the central bed sizes to allow for more plants next year. A long way to go before it is done, but we have started. We are also adding an extra fruit bed behind the potager so we can increase the raspberry canes, as they did so well. We were also treated to clear skies at the time of the October Hunters Moon – beautiful. I managed to catch the reflection on our rooftops – a little spooky but a great silhouette of the tower roof, although not my best photograph.

A large part of my time, aside from working, has been spent turning fruit into jams, compôtes and chutneys. Our lovely neighbours continue to give us crates of their produce so aside from more fig chutney, I have been looking for recipes using cape gooseberries or Physalis. These are known as les coquerets du Pérou here, delicious raw or dipped in chocolate, but now I have found recipes for chutney and jam too. I will share these with you next week in the seasonal food section. I have also tried them in the vegan clafoutis recipe (see post: Seasonal Food and Recipes: July) – a delicious but subtle addition to this now often baked pud.

A major feature of the last week has been collecting wood for the winter. We were offered some wood by a friend in the village who had cleared some land, so off we set to load up the car – poor car. On arrival we found a huge pile of wood, much of it fabulous for seasoning but a lot of it very large. I have definitely been building up my muscles this week. I swear by the end I was lobbing trees all over the place (well almost)!  Our neighbours (again) have also had various trees cut down and kindly requested that all the wood was cut to size for us – we just have to collect it! Great we thought – well after 8 car loads with the other wood, my enthusiasm for collecting more was less pronounced than at the beginning! However these ‘gifts’ are gratefully received and will help us keep a little warm in future winters if we still don’t have heating. Hopefully this won’t be the case but I did say that for each of the 2 winters we have already been through without heating. I am braced for the third winter and slightly dreading the drop in temperatures forecast for later this week. Time to find the hot water bottles! I have to say the sight of rows and rows of wood waiting to season is heartening and a visual record of all our hard work – a bit like jam making I suppose but requiring a good deal more stamina! I am just not thinking about the fact that there are many many car loads of wood still to collect.

On Sunday we went to the local Foire à la Châtaigne – Chestnut Fair, an annual event in Laguépie. It was a little too busy for me as I am still less than comfortable in crowds. However at least masks were mandatory and you had to show your passe sanitaire (vaccine pass) to get in. There were many interesting stalls, brimming with tasty goodies, not just selling chestnuts, but chestnuts and chestnut products were understandably in abundance. We came home with some chestnut flour, chestnut madeleines and some delicious roasted chestnuts, which we had watched being roasted over open fires in big barrel cages. The heat, the smoke and the smell jogged memories of eating roasted chestnuts in winter – but it was 24°C and very sunny that day. I didn’t envy those cooking them at all.

So into November we go, armed with plans to make some progress, items we really need to buy and an ever expanding to do list. With the clock change the evenings are drawing in, shutters being pulled into place earlier than before to keep what little warmth we have inside. If only the chimney sweep would come and do the chimneys. We are on his list but booked late so we await our turn. Seasoned logs are ready to bring warmth and cheer to the kitchen and séjour, stacked neatly (apart from when certain cats decide to jump all over them).

I hope you will enjoy the monthly updates alongside our other features. Next week some recipes and a look at what is in season at the moment.

Happy November to you all.

A bientôt

Ali xx

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