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Marmite and Mimosa

Bonjour to you all

Sadly no snow here this week but great clouds and skies, frequent downpours of rain and some lovely sunny moments. The garden is very squelchy – our potager is quite waterlogged – I hope my bay tree, that survived the move to France on the back of a removal truck and being transplanted into a new garden, can cope with sitting in a puddle for a little longer!

We had to do the dreaded trip to the supermarket this week. I used to really enjoy going to large French supermarkets – something to do with loving food and wine I expect. However since the pandemic I am less keen. We don’t go that often now, so when we do it is for a giant shop. Setting off with a slight lack of enthusiasm we were soon cheered up enormously. It was a very clear day and we were really lucky to have an amazing view of the snow-capped Pyrenees on the way – breath-taking. I miss the mountains but it is such a treat to be able to see them at times from here. The next bonus of this trip was my first sighting this year of beautiful mimosa tress in flower. I had hoped to plant one in the garden last year but didn’t get around to it. Next year for sure, such a great splash of yellow on a grey February day, and so pretty. We now just need to get on and buy one and then decide where to put it. There is always a silver lining.

Marmite – you either love it or hate it. I am in the love it camp and it is one of the very few things I miss from the UK. Normally you can get it here but up until mid-January we had supplies from my last trip to the UK. Since the beginning of the year it had disappeared from all the shops that normally have it. The supermarket trip this week yielded yet another benefit – Marmite supplies are back. However – and it is a big however – the Brexit impact has definitely arrived – the price has gone up quite a lot. It is expensive anyway – but now it is almost 8€ a pot. Wow! We will be making this pot last a long time! My son in the UK laughed, having just bought himself a pot for less than a third of the price!

This week has also included a baptism of fire in all things French tax, law etc. for small businesses.  As a microentrepreneur (small business owner) I have access to free training each year. Great I thought – I will sign up for that so that I understand my responsibilities, etc. All good. This week was training week – 2 full days. We received a presentation of 209 slides in advance – a little daunting. I thought it would be a webinar-type of thing, but no – Day 1 was a full-on interactive session on Zoom. Max found it quite funny when it was my turn to introduce myself, as I almost went blank on how to speak French! I have no idea why but I got all nervous and forgot what I needed to say! I got there in the end but….. a bit embarrassing.  I did, however, get back into my stride speaking French and learned lots of new words too. Day 2 involved more interaction and group work. Another packed day as there is so much to understand and so many forms. Aside from all the hard work which was quite exhausting, it was really great to spend 2 days speaking French with French people. One of the participants made me smile near the end, when she said she was finding it very hard and overwhelming, and if that was the case for her, she had no idea how I was coping with it all! I am relieved it was not just me who found it challenging.

The garden has started to show signs of Spring which has inspired me to think about what to plant and where.

I spent a blissful hour going through all my seeds to see when they needed planting and to start the planning process. I found some cress seeds so popped them in a dish – I haven’t grown cress for a long time. It grows so quickly – very satisfying.

I also popped a few spring bulbs in some old yogurt pots to bring a little bit of Spring into the kitchen. I am looking forward to seeing the snowdrops appear.

Now the seeds are organised, I am ready to start planting next week (as the weather is promising to be drier and warmer), having bought some seed compost and set up a place in the souillarde to keep the seed trays for germination. Last year I had seed trays all over the kitchen – not that practical and definitely not this year with the kittens who love digging in the earth given half a chance. They are always trying to dig up my potted plants and have given the lovely banana tree quite a hard time – hopefully it will recover, as it was a wedding present. I am trying to make sure they don’t annihilate the lemon tree (currently over-wintering in the kitchen) as it is doing so well this year – lots of beautiful flowers that smell gorgeous – who knows maybe some lemons too?

Talking of kittens – we have our next vet visit bright and early on Monday morning for the big op. We are both slightly dreading the whole cat basket saga – memories of wild cats still linger, along with the scars! The Feliway spray will certainly be making an appearance over the weekend to try and calm them down in advance – hopefully. They are real teenagers now and have grown up so fast. I keep saying this but the boys are so big at 5 months, much bigger than the girls – I fear we may have a couple of giant cats on our hands soon.

I have finally made the jam with the pastèque à confire (white watermelon for jam) from my neighbour, which I mentioned in Marmalade and Moodboards. I didn’t quite manage to replicate her version, as I didn’t cut the melon up quite small enough. Picking out the seeds took long enough so the chopping was done rather quickly. However as I still have another half a melon to do, I will try smaller pieces. I was quite pleased with the result which tasted very similar to the jar she gave us to try. I have even saved some seeds to try to grow my own – we will see if that works.

On the subject of making preserves, I couldn’t resist more citrus fruits last week at the market so have now made Grapefruit and Clementine Marmalade to add to the collection. We are not going to run out of marmalade or jam for quite some time!

I have had very little time to do anything in the house this week with 2 days of training and work for the rest of the week. However we did start sorting out our various projects for renovating. We have turned one of the second floor rooms into a work room for the moment for painting and breathing new life into some great brocante finds. More on that next week, but here is a sneak preview of a couple of our recent acquisitions – a beautiful antique canapé and marble-topped washstand. A bit of work to do..

Another week has flown by. Have a lovely weekend everyone. I would love to hear if anyone tried the marmalade recipe and what fruit you used? Let me know.

Stay safe and see you next week

A bientôt

Ali xx

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