Walking on their heads

If you’ve visited France over the last few months you may have noticed some village signs that are upside down. We noticed this one, near us, just before Christmas, and were curious as to why it had been done. After a little bit of research, we discovered that it is a protest by local farmers, to raise awareness of the challenges they face in their industry currently. This initially rather odd protest started in the Occitanie region, in the south of France, but has now spread nationally. It was intended as a harmless way to bring attention to their plight, which is trying to highlight the seemingly contradictory rules they have to contend with as EU members, that are not applied to foreign importers. There is a specific reason they they have chosen to turn the village signs over, it’s because in France when someone is asked to do one thing one day and then the opposite on the next day, they say they are ‘Walking on their heads’.

It’s hard to tell if it has, or will have, an impact on government, however it is getting noticed and it is making people ask “Why is the village sign upside down?”.

Champagne on ice

Pure frost

It had dropped to around -7°c overnight, and when Brian got up to make us some tea he peered out of the window and exclaimed “Jo you should come and see this, the trees are thick with frost, they look so beautiful” . As I was quite comfortable in bed, I suggested rather than getting up straight away to look, instead we could go for a walk after breakfast and take some photos. The forecast was to stay below freezing all day, so I doubted it was going to be thawing in a hurry, and I was very happy to stay in the warm a little bit longer.

So after breakfast, we wrapped up as cosily as possible and set off for a short walk to our favourite spot, the point de vue. It was such a beautiful walk, so quiet with a crisp, wintery stillness. Delightful. I love how the countryside changes its feel with the different seasons, the light, the colours, the air, all adding to the changing landscape.

These are the photographs I took of Brian taking his photos, which I will put up as a separate blog tomorrow. He also took some video which we want to include too.

It’s quite unbelievable that the blanket of white all around isn’t snow, but just pure frost.

Nature’s amazing

Whilst I was preparing breakfast this morning Brian nipped out to the vineyards at the back of our house. He wanted to take some photos of the vines.

He found the vineyard looking very chilled.

He couldn’t wait to come back and show me his photographs. The close ups of the vines looking like spiky hawthorns, with the natural icicles growing on them. Isn’t nature amazing.

The teasels, which are already spiky, appeared proud and statuesque against the fir trees, like they were ready for winter.

This view is looking down the valley from behind our house, and has an eeriness in the cold white light, as you peer into the distance.

I think he was glad to get back into the warm, and enjoy a little treat of hot chocolate.

Over specced!

We were keen to get the bathroom shelves finished, so this morning Brian focused on cutting the wood and fitting the actual shelves, in readiness for me to get them varnished. It really didn’t take him long, once he’d got started again. It’s just he needs to get started. I certainly think he does jobs much quicker than he used to, I think it’s because he has a lot more confidence now in his ability, and I suppose he has way more experience of different types of challenges he may come across.

I then needed to varnish or oil them, to help protect the wood and make them simple to wipe down. I was intending to oil them with an Osmo hard wax oil, however I only had a little left, not enough to complete the job, so I decided to use the product I’d used on the salon floor.

We’d bought a huge tin, and hadn’t even used half of it. It was probably over specced for the job, but it would do what I needed it to do.

Over the next couple of days I painted on two coats, and we were both very pleased with our end result. It is now full of towels, and being used to the max. I’m glad we finally got round to doing this as it has made a real difference to our bathroom.

I’m now wondering though, should I repaint the bathroom?

Clean sweep

It was a very chilly morning this morning, and I could easily have curled up under the duvet for another half an hour, but we’d booked for the chimney sweep to come today, and he was due at 8.30am.

Before he arrived I wanted to prepare the salon, clear off the mantelpiece, move the furniture and take up the rug.

In France it is part of your obligation for insurance purposes to have your chimney cleaned once per year. I think it’s a great safety requirement, but also helps support our local chimney sweeps.

He was soon at work, cleaning out the ash from last night, cleaning the damper and generally cleaning around the fireplace.

Next was to sweep the chimney. He first put a cloth up to reduce any dust that would come into the house, then he used a long pipe/brush which was wound around a large wheel. It was all very efficient and quick.

In fact it only took about 30 minutes to get set up, do the job, and clean up. He then emailed us our receipt and confirmation of the visit and results from the intervention. Our chimney now has a clean bill of health.

Bit nippy

There were a few bulbs I hadn’t yet planted, and as it was a gorgeously sunny day, although a bit nippy, I decided to head outside to plant them in two of the urns I’d bought last year. It was probably a little late to plant bulbs, but I’m sure they will have a go at growing.

The urns are quite deep, so I started by placing some plastic pots in the bottom first, so as not to use too much compost, and not to add too much weight to the urns.

I then filled them with a layer of compost, and positioned the bulbs on top, before covering them with more compost up to a depth of 15cm.

Now I just need to wait, and hopefully we’ll get to see some beautiful, yellow daffodils and narcissi in the spring.

Give us our daily bread

For those who have been following our adventure for a while now, you may remember me buying this lovely old bread board from a gentleman at a local vide grenier we visited. It’s been in our atelier waiting patiently to be renovated. Brian had treated a bit of woodworm on it as soon as we bought it, and also glued a crack together, which he thought may get worse if he left it. But today it made it to the top of the list, and he started working on it with the intention of making it ready to go up on the wall today.

He soon had it rubbed down using some fine wire wool so as not to scratch it, but tough enough to remove a lot of the old varnish and oils. It was already looking better.

The crack that he’d glued when we first bought it, had fixed together well, so there was not much more to do to it.

The last job was to oil it to help preserve the wood and bring out its natural colour. He used a chopping board oil, which is food friendly. I know I will probably never use it for putting food on, but it’s a good oil to use as it dries well, and nourishes the wood.

It was also another outing for the laser, so that he can line up the centre with the centre of the shelf.

It was soon hung up and looking stunning. I love mixing together our little English memories and our French finds, I think they look good together.

It’s snowing

We woke to a smattering of snow this morning. When it snows here the roads get icy very quickly before the salt can be laid, but the vignerons don’t let it stop them, driving out in their tractors to work in the vineyards, they really do go out in all weathers. The temperature was around -2°c , so not super cold, but chilly enough.

By lunchtime it had started to snow again. I think the falling snow brings the sleepy winter garden to life, making it a magical winter wonderland.

By mid afternoon the snowflakes were definitely getting bigger, and heavier, and beginning to settle. We were glad to be in the warm of the house, peering out of the window up into the vineyards.

Between flurries, Brian snuck out to empty the post box. The road was well and truly covered now, and the forecast is for the temperatures to drop, getting down to -7°c, so I don’t think we will be venturing too far for the next few days.

However, we did need to drop a cheque off at the Mairie’s, so Brian headed out all dressed up for the weather.

Board!

Last year we bought this old board at a vide grenier, I’d wanted it to use as a serving board for cold meats, charcuterie, nibbles etc.

Whilst Brian was making the shelf supports, he also sanded it down lightly for me, so it looks an even colour.

He has just oiled it, with some food safe oil. It looks brilliant, I’m so pleased with it, and it’s great to be back getting some jobs done.

Made to fit

Back to building the shelves today. I think Brian relishes this part of the job, the bit that he has to think about all the odd angles. He took his measurements and pretty much cut the board to fit first time, with very little wastage.

With the back board in, he now needed to fit in the supporting side boards.

With these in place, he could then add the shelf supports, which he’d carefully cut and rounded the front edge of, so as not to catch on towels. A little wood glue, nails and a laser, and the shelves were definitely coming together.

The sky at night

Last night we had a beautiful, clear sky. Brian had nipped out to bring some wood in for the fire, and got very excited when he returned, and quickly checked online to see if his new phone could take night shots, only to find a whole website on night sky photography with the iPhone. He promptly rushed back outside, and didn’t return for some minutes. When he did he was even more excited than before. Here’s why.

He believes both shots have captured the Milky Way, and even a spiral galaxy. He’s now looking forward to more clear nights this week to try some other shots.

A good experience

Earlier this week HSBC finalised on the sale of their French retail banking business to CCF. I have to admit, being on the business side of two bank platform migrations, when I worked in banking, I was not looking forward to the change, because these things never go smoothly.

We were told that we would lose our access to electronic banking through HSBC from 29th December, and not gain our CCF access until a week later, on Thursday 4th January.

The day came, and as I began the task of moving to the new app I was quickly very pleasantly surprised, just ten minutes into the process and I was registered with CCF and the app was working perfectly…in English! I don’t envy them behind the scenes as I’m sure not everything went so well, and there is probably a lot of work still to be done, but my customer experience has been very good.

One of the reasons for using HSBC France was that they had English speaking relationship managers, and the great thing is CCF are continuing to offer a named, English speaking relationship manager, which is great to have. Although our French is continuing to improve, on some subjects, like finance, it’s good to be certain that we understand what’s being said.

I’m hoping that we will enjoy the CCF service, as we did the HSBC France service. It’s been a good start.

Press two for

My first job for today was to ring the HMRC tax office. There is lots of information online, but it never quite answers the question you have, so I patiently waited on the line for over an hour to have my call answered. The wait was eased by coffee and toast served by Brian, an addition I’ve realised is very important when you are waiting to talk to the tax man.

Finally I got through, and spoke to a very helpful lady who told me that she couldn’t help me but I needed to speak to a different help desk, the pensionwise help desk. I was not despondent, I just took the number, thanked her for her help, and then redialled, after all it wasn’t her fault that I’d phoned the wrong help desk number. Luckily this help desk answered pretty much straight away, and the advisor knew her subject thoroughly. She was able to answer my questions quickly and efficiently so I felt that my efforts had paid off, as I was confident I had my answer.

Nativity

I treated myself to a rather tasty bacon sandwich for breakfast, enjoyed with a frothy coffee, such a great start to the day. Brian just wanted toast, and yoghurt, he is so easy to please.

We decided to take the Christmas decorations down today, I have to admit I was getting a bit fidgety with them being up. I absolutely love Christmas and the festive season, but I also love to get tidied up afterwards, and start planning for our year ahead.

We started by trimming the tree! We chop it all up and pop it into bags, ready to take it to the déchetterie (tip). It then didn’t take too long to clean everything up and pack away the decorations. I’d kept a sturdy box for my nativity scene that Brian had bought me, which he’d given to me throughout advent in my advent calendar. It is from Santons, the small village in the south of France famous for their nativity characters. I’ve always wanted one, so it was such a delight to open a new little character every day. The backdrop I’d used for it was a hand carved wooden scene that I had bought from a craft market in Kent many years ago. I love the natural colours of the little figures.

New Years Day

I love New Year’s Day, it feels like the last day of the festive period, when you can totally relax, and pretty much do nothing. We just had a little clearing up from the night before, but that didn’t take long before we were settling into our day. I suggested we make ourselves some apricot pastries for morning coffee, which went down a treat. The apricots were lovely and sharp, delicious.

Brian wanted to send his newsletter out, which he’d been working on over the Christmas period, so we sat down together to finish it off. I helped him on the agenda of events. We like to give our potential guests ideas of what’s happening through the year. Anyone that reads my blog gets to see the ones we visit, but not all the newsletter recipients read the blog. Our local tourist office also issues a seasonal agenda ‘what’s on’, which provides lots of details of what’s coming locally.

If you don’t receive the newsletter, the link is here, and if you would like them sent automatically you can subscribe here. It includes a mini series of articles titled ‘Sip of Champagne’ which helps our readers enhance their knowledge of Champagne and our region. This edition is focusing on bottle sizes.

Little donkeys

The sun was trying to poke its head out, so we decided we’d take a little New Year’s Eve walk up to the point de vue. It took us past two little donkeys, who enjoy a wonderful field overlooking the vineyards, they share it with a couple of horses, who came to say hello.

I have to say my legs were feeling a little weary, probably because we haven’t exactly done a lot of walking lately. We definitely need to get out and enjoy some early New Year walks.

Soup and nibbles

We needed to nip into Troyes last week on a few errands. Brian had bought me some gorgeous slippers, but I needed the next size up. The Ekyog shop, where Brian bought them, changed them with ease for me.

It wasn’t a great day weather wise, so we enjoyed a coffee and sandwich at a small boulangerie for lunch then headed over to the Leclerc at Saint Parres aux Tertres. It’s a very large supermarket which was well stocked with lots of tasty new year treats. I was mostly after some beef to make a slow cooked casserole. Their meat counter was packed full of choice, and the butcher was helpful in sharing his thoughts on the best cut of meat. I chose 3, rather large, slices of beef shank, that included the bone and bone marrow. I wanted this to help make the gravy thick and rich with flavour to go with some delicious dauphinois potatoes. I was planning to cook it for an easy supper with friends.

We were not too late home, and a simple supper of soup and nibbles was in order, sitting in front of the fire with a spicy Bloody Mary, a perfect end to our day

The year that was

2023 started cold in Viviers-sur-Artaut, and although the weather soon warmed up the frosts descended on the vineyards, and the annual spraying of the vines was soon seen.

A glorious sight to see and experience.

As summer arrived the local lakes were a favourite spot to visit, so tranquil and calm.

Cathedrals and museums are always on our list of visits, with tradition and modernity often fusing.

The end of summer brought beautiful landscapes.

Harvests were good for all.

Autumn soon turned the landscape striking shades of red. A beautiful year in Champagne.

Banana pancakes

I had a couple of bananas that were past their best, so what better way to use them than in some pancakes. I’d mixed a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda into the mix to make them lighter than normal.

Brian enjoyed his with maple syrup, I prefer fresh lemon and sugar on mine. Such a delicious way to start the day.

We were spending the day at home, just sorting a few things out, cutting some wood, going to the bottle bank, watering my bulbs that were looking stunning, and generally having a tidy up before new year.