Not to worry

Last night, when Brian was just finishing off outside, he received an error message on his iPhone stating that there was an issue with our boiler. After a bit of investigation on his part, he thought it may be because there were some pellets blocking the tube that feeds them from the silo to the boiler. He came in to update me on what was going on, and see if I had any ideas on what to do! The whole system appears, from an untrained eye, to be completely sealed, and not something I thought we should ‘tinker’ with. So I suggested we ring the plumber.

Luckily he was available and soon put us on the right track to try and resolve it over the phone. He directed Brian under the silo, really not an easy place to reach, but with a bit of wriggling he got himself in position. He could then see clearly which of the pipes was delivering the pellets. He needed to unbolt the pipe and clear the blockage. After rather a lot of ‘I hope this fixes it’ and a little pile of the pellets, which we believed were the culprits, he was soon securing the pipe back and I was switching the boiler back on to see if it was going to suck the pellets through.

Getting out from under the silo was not quite so easy, “Not to worry, I’ll get you out”. I grabbed Brian’s legs and with an almighty pull, freed him from his awkward position.

We waited a while to listen for the pellets to feed through, but although we did not hear them we were not getting any error messages. We headed back indoors and waited for any other errors. After a while Brian made a check on the boilers app, and we could see that the volume of pellets that had been used had increased by 4 kg. We let the plumber know, and finally settled into our evening.

Woodn’t fit

We needed to nip out and get the wood for the cellar this morning. It has to be a well planned event, as I have not mastered the art of reversing a trailer, so we try to time it to get to Weldom just before lunch, when the car park has emptied.

The plan all came together, and by 11.45 we were loading the wood into the trailer. We knew it was never going to fit lengthwise, so Brian had brought plenty of straps to secure the wood in the back of the trailer.

After a quick coffee, and some homemade honey madeleines, Brian was keen to get going on fitting the wooden frame for his wall.

He started off by cutting some wooden boards to top off the stone walls. These were quite a fiddly job, having to make them fit around each oak beam. But they have made a great foundation for him to continue with completing the main part tomorrow.

Green tomato chutney - take 2

A few weeks back I preserved my green tomatoes out of the garden by cooking them in vinegar and sugar. I didn’t really have time back then to cook them down sufficiently to make a good chutney, as I had too many in the pot and they were really juicy, which resulted in too much liquid. However, what I achieved was to preserve the ingredients until I had time to reduce them down properly.

It’s a wet dull day today outside, so ideal to make myself busy indoors and work on finishing up making the chutney.

Brian is outside working on the walls in the cellar and doesn’t need me helping, although I keep popping out for some moral support. But it’s nice just to be pottering in the kitchen.

Green tomato chutney

1kg tomatoes, mixed green, yellow and red

400g onions or shallots

100g dried fruit, I like to use some raisins

250g muscovado sugar

1 - 2 medium sized, hot red chillis

2cm ginger, grated

1 tsp salt

2 tsp yellow mustard seeds or a teaspoon of grain mustard

300ml white wine vinegar, I do tend to use up what’s in the cupboard (but not balsamic)

Start by chopping the tomatoes - not too small.

Put the green fruit together with the peeled and roughly chopped onions, into a large stainless steel or enamelled pan with the raisins, sugar, chilli, salt, mustard seeds and vinegar. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and leave to simmer for an hour, giving the occasional stir to reduce the risk of the chutney sticking. After about 25 minutes cooking, add the ripe tomatoes and continue to simmer. Then spoon into sterilized jars and seal. It really is that easy, and we love to eat it with cheese and biscuits, or drop a spoonful in a casserole to add another layer of flavour and richness.

Stirring it

The first set of stones that we had laid and cemented in were nicely dry and secure now, so this morning we were back out to finish the stone part of the walls off. It started by mixing up, by hand, our first batch of cement. Not too sloppy, as it oozes out under the weight of the stones, but not too dry, as it doesn’t stick well. I think we had this worked out now and, using the drill with its attachment, made quite light work of it.

We had checked the stones that we wanted to use, and laid them out ready. We wetted each one as we laid it into place, as this would help the cement stick. A couple of hours later and we were admiring our finished wall. We now have to wait again for the cement to dry before Brian will progress with building the wooden panels.

Master card

Sunday morning, and it’s a bit grey and drizzly outside, so I decided to bring some sunshine in and make us some banana pancakes to start the day. I’ve been using the Einkorn flour I buy locally from Dominique, at La Ferme des Blés d’Or. It is such a light, soft flour and is just gorgeous in cakes, biscuits and pancakes.

We talked about what to do after breakfast, and decided we wanted to give the wall one more day to set properly before going to finish it off. So instead we thought we’d head up to the atelier (studio) to make our Christmas cards which, of course, have been designed by Brian.

He thought his design this year would mean they would be quite easy to make, but I’m really not sure. All will be revealed over the coming weeks.

The wonderful thing, as with all Christmas activities, is that we can enjoy a little tipple whilst making them. What a delightful Sunday.

Hunkering down

I love this time of year, when we get our firewood delivery in readiness for our winter log fires. Hunkering down for winter gives a real feeling of warmth and home. Fire wood in France is a little scarce this year, so we were pleased when Charles let us know he could deliver some for us. It didn’t take us long to get it offloaded and stacked away.

We are just loving how the barn has developed over the last six months, below is it back in April, and shows the stages of tidying it went through. We were on a mission then to get it tidied up, and at the time it seemed quite a foreboding task. The right hand side was to be Brian’s workshop and the plan was to build a wooden wall to partition this off, which as you can see, in the bottom picture, we completed. We did this by using lots of wood that we had left over from other projects, or had reclaimed in some way.

It’s a much better use of space now, and works well for us.

Simply cake

One of the things I love, since moving to France, is having time to do just what I want to do. Okay, we still have things we need to do, but I do feel that now we do more things that we just want to do, and today I wanted to bake a cake.

I had a couple of apples that I thought would be nice to use up, so I went on a search for a recipe. I found a nice tasting one by Nigella, but it needed 8 eggs, which seemed a lot, and seeing as I only had two, that was not an option! I resumed my search using Pinterest, and came across ‘A Simple Apple Cake’. I am normally quite sceptical when something says it’s simple, I often think the word simple has been used because something in the recipe really isn’t, and they’re trying to trick you into doing it anyway. However, this cake really was ‘simple’.

I will share my recipe for it, as I did also change it slightly to suit what I had in my cupboard.

Prepare a 20 cm spring form cake tin. Butter it, and add baking parchment on the bottom. Peel, core and slice 2 large eating apples and sprinkle a bit of lemon juice on them, to prevent them from going brown. Preheat the fan oven to 160°c

Cream together 125g butter (room temperature) with 165g caster sugar. Whisk in 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, 2 eggs and 125ml of full fat milk (also room temperature). Once mixed, whisk in the flour 225g plain flour and 3 teaspoons of baking powder. Thoroughly whisk.

Pour half the mixture into the tin, and place half the apples on it, then pour on the other half, then arrange the remaining apples on the top. I then added a few walnuts, but you could use almonds if preferred.

Bake in the oven for about 40-45 minutes. We enjoyed our first piece just warm, with some vanilla cream - delicious.

Nouveau evening

The third Thursday in November is when the ‘Beaujolais Nouveau’ is released, and we had been invited to a ‘soirée’ at a friends house in Chatillon-sur-Seine to celebrate it. We had been asked to bring a bottle, so we decided to pop into our local off license and epicerie in Bar-sur-Seine, L’Instant Gourmet, which is always a delight. We got to try three different producers, two of which we found quite thin in body, but the third we were happy to take along to the party.

The wine was already flowing by the time we arrived and the bottles, ready to be tasted, were all lined up on the side. I think it really is a bit hit and miss to find a good one, and I was driving, so Brian was my trusted taster, a job he volunteered for fully. As is customary when meeting french people, we slowly tried to make our way around the room saying our bonsoirs, and shaking hands, but with so many people, it was quite difficult.

The evening was a very convivial affair, and gave us lots of opportunity to practice our french. It was such a great evening with chatter, singing of french songs (which we haven’t quite got the hang of yet, we need to learn the words for next time) and sharing platters of gougeres, charcuteries, and fromage. To finish off, some delicious Beaujolais-red themed, little coffee and chocolate eclairs.

What a wonderful evening.

Hard labour

Yesterday we were excited, as we had planned to try and get the cellar wall built. The plan was to build a base to the wall in stone, between each of the posts. Above that Brian will build a wooden wall holding big sheets of polystyrene. We only needed to build four small walls, as we would be leaving a space for the door to be fitted in. It was the small stone walls that we wanted to try and achieve.

We started off by using the laser to help mark where each of the walls needed to be built up to. The main thing was not to build past the mark.

It was then a case of choosing the stones to use and laying them on the floor in the correct order ready to be cemented in, before mixing the cement up and starting laying.

I think we had underestimated how heavy the stones were, and how awkward it was in manoeuvring them in the cramped space. We approached it all very slowly, and carefully, but after a few hours of heavy work, decided to call it a day and tidy up. We were pleased with where we’d got to, but once these have set, we need to come back and finish it off.

A Sunday stroll

We woke this morning to beautiful blue skies. After a relaxing cup of tea in bed I suggested that maybe we should go for a walk, so we enjoyed a light breakfast, packed up a couple of jambon beurres (ham baguettes) and a flask of coffee and, after a quick check of our route, set off. I had wanted to explore a path behind our house, which we hadn’t really walked along previously, but we weren’t sure that all the marked paths met up properly, so it would be a bit of a voyage of discovery. We walked through the village and were soon heading up through beautiful woodland.

The woodland ended and we emerged onto high farmland plains. I had to take a quick photo, as I thought we were looking like giants with miniature heads, walking with our backs to the low, late autumn sun.

As we walked through the fields of kale, and winter wheat, we could hear a familiar gaggle for this time of year. We looked up, searching the sky for formations of birds. We could definitely hear the cranes on their migration south, but they take a while to spot sometimes. When we did manage to accustom our eyes, we saw three big flocks on the horizon. They stop off at the Lac d’Orient on their migration, and will probably spend a few days there before continuing their long flight south.

As we walked along the edge of vineyards and kale fields we could see to our right the small village of Chervy, nestled amongst its own vineyards. On the horizon the wind turbines were delicately turning, harnessing what wind and energy there was on such a calm day. It’s always nice to be able to see neighbouring villages, it really gives a sense of place in the landscape.

We turned left here and headed back down into Viviers-sur-Artaut, enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon sun. We passed back into forest, quiet, and dappled with the low setting sun. We’d been out for nearly three hours, and our minds were wandering to a sit down, a cup of earl grey tea, and dinner in front of a lit fire.

But one last treat awaited us as we dipped down into Viviers, an amazing view of our village. Our usual point de vue is on the other side of the valley, but this view was just as spectacular.

Now time for that tea!

Red sky at night

As we were driving home yesterday afternoon, from our shopping trip to Bar-sur-Aube, Brian mentioned that the sky was looking well placed for a good sunset. The cloud cover was broken and flat, with patches of clear blue sky between. I pulled over just before we started to drop down into our little valley and Brian jumped out to try and capture the scene. The sunset was developing, but not quite there yet, so I suggested we drive up to the point de vue, and see what it looked like from there. So off we scurried. I left Brian to run through the trees to capture his shots, whilst I strolled after, just taking in the evening air.

We were not disappointed with the sunset, which looked simply spectacular. A wonderful finish to what was just a little Shopping trip.

Recyclorient

I love this as a new word. It’s actually the name of a new recycling centre, just 20 minutes from us, in Vendeuvre-sur-Barse. You know us, we love to be able to reuse or recycle items, so when Brian discovered this newly opened depot we were keen to make a visit.

We always keep an eye out for some new records, as we love to listen to them on our old record player. It’s quite an eclectic mix that we have put together, but even these were not quite our thing.

We did come away with some very good finds. A vice (which will be ideal on Brian’s bench in his workshop), an old bottle dryer (which will be more decorative than useful, but it was only 5 euros), some light shades (all 4 for 30 cents), a pot, and a couple of crème brûlée dishes. Not a bad day really.

Preparing for the season

Once the pool was closed for the season we focussed on preparing the rest of the garden for winter, stacking all the garden furniture away and draining down the garden taps and hoses. The water pump up to the pool also needed to be shut down, as temperatures in the well room drop below zero. It’s a job that can’t be rushed, as the whole system needs to be drained completely.

Whilst Brian was doing this, I decided I’d take the opportunity to pop a few bulbs in the ground that I’d bought earlier in the year. I love the way they seem to let you know when the seasons are changing and I always think they are such a beautiful surprise when they pop their heads up in spring or early summer, and as I never seem to remember what I’ve planted, or where I’ve planted them, it’s an even bigger surprise. That’s all part of the fun, let’s wait and see how these look next year.

Dahlias for lunch

It was very misty when we woke this morning we were due to have some friends over for lunch, so I wanted to get up and get things prepared. Last night I had made a chocolate moelleux cake, which I was hoping would be a light, lunchtime dessert. It was the first time I’d made this recipe, but I had enjoyed the process, and it came out well, if a little ‘rustic’. I will definitely be making it again though, as it was rather scrumptious and quite light for a chocolate cake, whilst also being gluten free.

The lunch was very relaxing, with lots of chatting and catching up on what we had all been doing over the past couple of months. I had made us a mushroom and chestnut pie with Madeira sauce, served with roast vegetables, which went down very well.

Our lunch guests had brought us these stunning flowers, an arrangement that she had gathered from her garden. I think The Dahlias made such a beautiful and striking display. I’m thinking it may be good to try and grow some in the garden next year, but I need to look into how easy that would be first. They are definitely gorgeous as a cut flower.

Six holes

We decided that we both needed to work on the cellar today, as Brian needed me to help put the wooden beams up. We’d bought all the materials we needed, mainly some cement to securely fix them into the ground, and some rather long screws to attach them under the beam going across the top.

We were both keen to get started, so a quick brekkie then I was being briefed by Brian on what he’d prepared and what the plan of action was. He had already marked out where he wanted each beam to go, selected the order of the beams, and marked the overhead beam, so it meant we could get on with digging the holes straight away.

It was a bit hard going at first, as the ground is very hard and full of old rocks. However, we really didn’t need big holes, and we soon had a rhythm. Brian broke up the surface with the pick axe, then I came along and dug out the hole to the size we needed. We soon had all six holes prepared.

We then needed to cut each of the oak beams to the right length. The big thing, which you don’t notice as your doing it, but all the picking up of the beams, and moving them around, does start to take its toll. Sharing the weight, and working together though, we pushed ahead and got the beams cut.

The next thing was to position them in the holes and screw the tops into place, so they didn’t move, and then cement them in.

Et voila, we now just need to wait for the cement to go off.

Hivernage

Although we enjoy wonderful hot summers, the winters do bring some pretty low temperatures. That’s the joy of a continental climate, and living inland.

One upshot of this is that the pool is in danger of freezing if it’s not closed properly for the season. To winterise the pool the water temperature needs to be around 12°C (and this temperature needs to be constant). As a general rule, this is at the end of October for us, but temperatures have been a little warmer this year, so we are only just able to close it now. If you winterise too soon the water is likely to turn green, and we would then need to treat it in the spring, so that’s why it’s worth waiting for the right temperatures. Therefore it’s really worthwhile keeping the water in good condition, hence why Brian has diligently checked the pool every couple of days to keep an eye on chemical and water levels.

Grey matter

We received a phone call from the framers in Troyes, telling us that our three pictures were now ready to be collected. That was exciting, as we’d taken the pictures in weeks ago, so really looking forward to seeing them framed. These were the pictures we had bought at a marché des puces in the summer, two charcoal sketches and an old print from the Louvre.

We were both really keen to see how they would look in the house. We knew that two of them were going to hang in the Jeroboam. We’d chosen quite a simple black wooden frame for these two, complemented by a grey border. Although we know roughly where we want them, we couldn’t completely decide, so we need a bit more time to think about that one.

The third picture we framed slightly differently, in a thicker dark wood frame, but again with a grey border, to help complement the grey charcoal print.

However, we still hadn’t quite decided on where it would hang, so had to move it around a bit. It didn’t take long though, as there was a very natural place for it next to the fireplace in the salle à manger.

Doorstep

It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, the sky was a little grey, but it was warm. Brian suggested we head out for a short walk, so I packed us up a flask of coffee and a couple of chocolate biscuits, and we headed off walking along the side of our little river ‘the Artaut’ .

I was scouting around in advance to see where we could find some moss for our Christmas wreaths. I’m looking forward to making them again in a few weeks time.

We walked slowly up the hill, until we reached the plateau of farmland. The skylarks were singing up above, but otherwise the air was still.

We continued along our frequently used route, until the path ducked down past the point de vue, where we chose to stop and sit to drink our coffee. I quietly said to Brian “It’s not bad is it, having this gorgeous countryside right on our doorstep?”.

Two become six

Brian had already planned which order he wanted to use the beams in, so he started to staple numbers into them, so as not to get them mixed up.

A lot of chipping away and an awful lot of dust later, and with a whole lot of effort, he had finished all the beams.

Next job is to position them back in the cellar and get them secured into place. I think he needs to do a bit of prep work for that, so he will hopefully be securing them in early next week.

France today

It was a chilly morning, so I decided a plate of banana pancakes for breakfast would set us up well. I like to make them with a thick batter then add a half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, to help lighten them. I enjoy mine with lemon and sugar, whilst Brian pours on the maple syrup. All very delicious.

Brian headed out to get started again on the oak beams, he has six to do, and currently has two finished. I grabbed a quiet half hour finishing my coffee he’d made me, reading my new ‘France today’ magazine, which had just arrived.

This issue has some great articles including ‘Alsace walks’. It is an area we have visited and loved, and plan to return to make some hikes there, so an interesting write up for us. It also has an article on ‘the future of Champagne’, which relates to climate challenge, so definitely worth a read. Ooh, and a timely inclusion of Christmas markets! I had been thinking that it will be nice to visit one, and the article features a few that are all within easy reach of us. I do so love visiting a Christmas market, it really brings the festive spirit. Such a glorious time of year.