Blog posts

The Angle Grinder Incident

Bonjour once again

I hope you have all had a great week wherever you are? June has arrived and brought some sunshine and warmth to the Tarn and then lots of rain on Friday. The light on the fields (which are actually green) after the storm was amazing.

However, during the storm, whilst we were out collecting our latest find (more on that later), rain water began to come through the ceiling again in the room my son is using as a study. The gutters were obviously blocked. On our return, Max was off to the tower attic to put the very homemade gutter cleaner to work! Quite hysterical to watch, but also very effective – such a clever idea!

Life continues at our petit château with the usual round of grass cutting, DIY stuff and work, not forgetting the essential coffee and chocolatine!

We have had some gorgeous weather and had our first swim of the year (or swims in my case!). The pool is in great shape this year – such a treat for us. We are looking forward to when we will be able to welcome back family and friends from outside France, possibly not this summer. We have had a few issues with the newly repaired electrolyser so it took some time out to rest. We learn something new all the time with the pool – levels of chlorine, salt, pH… the electrolyser is just the latest along with pool ladder feet!

Last Sunday we celebrated la fête des mères (Mothers’ Day) with friends. The sun shone all day, the local rosé wine was perfect and they even got to visit the belvedere – our first guests to do so! My idea of a perfect summer weekend is a long lunch on the terrace with friends, spending all afternoon eating and chatting, putting the world to rights, relaxing with a lovely glass of chilled rosé (or two)!

The insulation story continues with a new team arriving on Thursday afternoon to supposedly finish the job! We had said there was far too much to do to complete it all in one afternoon – the guys who arrived could not believe how much work was still left to do. I have to say, after a bit of lunch, as they had already done 2 jobs that day and had not eaten, they worked very quickly and made great progress. The same team plus one arrived today (Saturday) and finished the job. 2 attics were already done, the third underway, with the remainder of that, the cellar and outside tower loo to complete. All done by late Saturday afternoon, but just as they were enjoying an ice cold beer, they realised that they had managed to lock the van keys in the back of the van. Oops! After much bashing and sawing at the padlock, no joy. Max had to nip over to a friend to pick up an angle grinder to assist with the challenge. What a way to end the day for them, quite entertaining for us to watch them trying to break in to their own van. I didn’t take a photo as that seemed a little mean. Now the job is done, we will be able to clean up and get things back to some degree of normality, as we had to move everything out of the attics, all of which is now dotted about all over the place, plus a courtyard full of things from the cellar!

In not such good news, tragedy struck this week in the wildlife world of the château. On Monday I found a dead baby owl – a young Little Owl chick I think. It looked like it had fallen from a great height and broken its neck. Heart-breaking, especially as we have just started seeing the adult Little Owl again. We can’t work out where they are nesting, as they are not in their usual pigeonnier spot – I think some Barn Owls may have overwintered there and put them off. The drama, however, was not over, as on Friday morning I found a second dead chick, again in the courtyard but in a slightly different place. I am so sad and have no idea whether they fell from somewhere, were thrown out of the nest or attacked or what happened. In case you ask, nothing to do with these young ladies or their brothers.

We have harvested the one and only cherry on our 2 cherry trees this year – the frost got the rest sadly. We had a suitable ceremony last night, sharing the cherry between the three of us! Sounds ridiculous but the cherries from the garden were delicious last year and plentiful – none of us wanted to miss that lovely taste, even if only for a tiny fleeting moment. By contrast, my strawberries are doing amazingly – including the wild strawberries from my Mother’s garden. I am picking them each day, along with rocket, spinach and lots of sweet peas to scent the house. I am quite surprised the sweet peas and strawberries survived the late frosts when so much else perished. Thank goodness they did.

On Monday we had a trip to Varen, a pretty village by the Aveyron river, about 20 minutes away from where we are – more on that later this month. Bear had a lovely walk along the river and around the village. The main reason for the visit was to collect yet another brocante find I had bought – a gorgeous old stone owl. He is now enjoying the terrace. Isn’t he just adorable?

I’ve had a bit of a shopping spree, as later in the week we spotted another potential purchase for the house – a beautiful old walnut writing desk. So off we went in the rain, loved it, bought it and enjoyed a chat with the owner, an English lady who, like us, had moved over here a couple of years ago. We also snapped up a rather lovely chair – one for next week, as we couldn’t fit it in the car.  I have a spot in mind for both these pieces of furniture….

Roses are in full bloom here at the moment and there are stunning displays everywhere. I spotted these in Varen – definitely another to add to the garden plant wish list! You can almost smell these roses and the colours make me think of raspberries and cream, swirled together.

The roses I pruned by the well are covered in buds and looking very happy. They have clearly benefitted from their drastic prune and are much better now than when they were completely out of control and overgrown. Such a pretty, frilly and fragrant rose, but lots of thorns!

The self-seeded cornflowers add a dash of colour to the potager – such an exquisite blue. I am enjoying little posies of flowers on the table every day. It makes the working days so much more enjoyable!

Don’t forget that from June, on the first Monday of each month I will be looking at seasonal local produce, with trips to markets and recipes that make the most of what is around or in the potager. Look out for this next Monday!

I hope you have a lovely week. Thank you for joining me. I would love to hear your comments on this blog, as well as what you find interesting, would like to know more about, or not as the case might be!

A bientôt

Ali xx

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *