Leap Year

Bonsoir to you all on this special day

February 29^th comes but once every 4 years. I was reading today about a man celebrating his tenth birthday, even though he was 40. It must be curious to have a real birthday once every 4 years. Do you choose 28^th February, 1^st March or some other date on which to celebrate?

This leap year day we were treated to a dry and occasionally sunny day, after a lot of rain on and off, but mainly on, for ages. Our drive has a steady supply of water running down it to the drain, a lot of squelchy mud where we should have scraped off the top part of the drive. We took the opportunity to do some work in the garden in the sunshine. A long overdue heavy prune of a climbing rose by our well was one of my top jobs to do. A battle commenced with this wonderful rose that didn’t get a good prune last year due to late frosts and bad weather. There was a lot of dead wood and intertwined stems, the rose wasn’t that keen so I came out of the job scratched and scarred! At one point a stem flicked back at me catching my nose – painful. Anyway job done and eventually the rose will thank me (I hope) for giving it a new lease of life! There is still more I could cut out but I ran out of time.

What else have we been up to over the last couple of weeks? We have had a trip out and tried an interesting cake, multiple trips to the vets which stresses the cats, a septic tank inspection and roasted kohlrabi. We have also been making bannisters – more on that in the next renovation update.

Spring is beginning to make an appearance in the garden as plants and trees start waking up. The wild plum is in blossom, always an early arrival in our garden, the snowdrops are coming to an end but being replaced by grape hyacinths and daffodils. The euphorbia are beginning to show signs of their fabulous bright green tips and the hellebores are in full flower along with a number of pink hyacinths. I have a very pink spring garden it appears. There is, as ever, so much to do in the garden. We have commenced the endless pruning jobs, dealing with the hedge and buddleia on the terrace and starting on the wisteria. Roses are getting their turn and the mighty laurel is not far off a haircut. I would love to garden for days but other duties, including work, lay claim to some of my time.

The cat saga was fun. None of our lovely rescue menagerie enjoy going to the vets. Bear doesn’t mind so much as he has worked out it involves treats, but the cats get more and more challenging as they grow older. Getting them into the cat baskets gets harder and harder. Once we manage with one of them, the next cat is alerted by the first captured cat’s plaintive cries that all is not well, and the battle begins. We did manage to get Louka and Anya to the vets as scheduled. She was very vociferous for the journey and Louka had an accident in the crate. He was really stressed poor thing but they both survived, had their vaccinations and got a clean bill of health. We were scheduled to take Nina the same afternoon and had been given a calming tablet to administer beforehand. Cats are not stupid and even if you put said calming tablet in something nice, they take one sniff and look at you with eyes full of knowing – there is definitely something dodgy in this food so I won’t eat it. No matter how much you cajole and plead, it is a definite no! To add to the complications the septic tank inspector arrived 3 days early for their appointment, just when we needed to be calming Nina and getting her into the basket! The vet appointment was duly rescheduled as Nina went into hiding. The next day we tried again with the tablet, no joy, so we had a fun few minutes pursuing a terrified cat to get her into the basket. Long story short we succeeded in the end and took the stressed cat to the vets. I hate making them so scared and wish they would remember that it is only a brief moment and then life returns to normal for another year. Louka took several days to recover from his vet trip, hiding out under a blanket on our bed.

You may have heard in the news about farmers striking here in France over amongst other things how little supermarkets pay them for their produce. I did post about the ‘operation escargot’ in January. Aside from blockades and spraying government buildings, they have also engaged in another activity – turning village/town signs upside down. In some cases they have even interchanged town names. The latest thing we noticed earlier this week is to cover up speed cameras, so on a trip to Albi all the cameras were covered in binbags. They do know how to protest here.

I mentioned cake earlier. Who doesn’t love cake? A recent trip in to Albi ended with a need for tea and cake. We were planning to have tea in a rather lovely place but it was full, as was another place that does an amazing thé gourmand. Instead we popped in to a lovely café. One of the cakes was Green tea and raspberry, startlingly green in colour so I had to try it. It was delicious, so much so that I got another slice the next day after a hair appointment! I must try and make a cake like this but need to find matcha green tea powder to achieve the colour and flavour. I will report back, but if you have a recipe for this cake please let me know. The roasted kohlrabi will appear in a seasonal food post over the weekend.

As we head in to March and a new season, it is good to look back and know we managed to survive the cold of the house in winter, yet again. A few chilblains and nightly hot water bottles to make, as well as many layers of clothes. The woodburners continue to warm us and we have had so many trees cut down as they were dead that we do have a plentiful supply of wood for next winter now. It is still cold here but the signs of life in the garden indicates that warmer days will be on their way.

Enjoy March and I will be back on the anniversary of us buying our little piece of life in France. 5 years already! Time does fly by.