Full to bursting

This week will be my 60th birthday, which seems to have crept sneakily up on me! As a treat Brian arranged for us to go away for a few days, which was really exciting. So last Thursday we set off on our little mini adventure to the Morvan Natural regional park, which is about 2 hours from us, in Burgundy. We planned to take the scenic route, although we were conscious, with all the rain that had fallen over the last week, that some of the roads may be flooded.

As we crossed the small bridge at Loches-sur-Ources we could see the extent of the water problem.

The river was full to bursting, and very fast flowing. As we travelled past Mussy-sur-Seine, we could easily see that the Seine had burst its banks there. We had heard they were holding back the water in the Seine to protect Paris from flooding.

The Morvan is situated well into Burgundy, and we were going to be staying at a little hotel in the village of Saulieu, but first we wanted to head to the area around Saint Brisson to visit the park visitors centre, and explore some of the countryside there. Over the next few days I’ll share some of our little adventure away.

Stake out

We’d finished breakfast, and I was just sorting the weekend’s laundry out, when I could hear Brian tapping away in his workshop. ‘Now what’s he up to?’ I thought.

I soon realised he was making the stakes to support my new fruit trees.

I headed out to help him, and hold the stakes, as he attached them together. Then we carefully attached some rubber ties to prevent the young trees from getting blown about.

They are already showing signs of healthy growth.

A special treat

My friend treated us to a rather gorgeous evening out last weekend. She took us to a favourite restaurant of ours ‘Le Garde Champêtre’ .

It’s built inside an old railway station, and has so much charm.

We enjoyed an absolutely gorgeous meal together. I just love the way the chef creates their menus using really interesting ingredients, bought at the market, or grown in their own potager.

The dishes are perfect little bursts of flavour. These tuiles, to kick start our evening, are made using caméline, a small grain grown locally. They were delicious, with a little note of savoury sweetness. The petite tartelette, was filled with ricotta and smoked trout, and a spoon of smoked trout eggs on top. This gave a touch of saltiness to make our mouths water for what was to come.

Thank you for a wonderful evening.

Time capsule

A little while back we shared a bottle of English wine we had been given with some French friends. It’s always fun trying new wines with friends, listening to what others think, what tastes they get, and sometimes the wine turns out rather surprising, as was the case with this one.

The wine was from an English producer called Oatley, and the name of the wine is ‘Leonora’. It’s made from a grape called Kernling, not one I’d heard of before, but apparently it’s closely related to Reisling, so it’s good with seafood and Asian dishes. It was such a delicious wine, that after finishing the bottle, our friend asked Brian if he could get hold of some more. As luck would have it, another friend of ours was coming over from the UK, so we asked if she would be able to bring us a bottle or two.

What she actually brought was a ‘Time Capsule’, a six bottle, vertical tasting selection, with a little pamphlet of tasting notes. I can’t tell you how excited we are to be able to share this with our French friends. C’est magnifique! I know we are in for some fun tasting evenings.

Sweet and juicy

I’d been gifted two beautiful fruit trees which I was really keen to get planted. The forecast is a few days of rain, so it will be great to get them in the ground and settled in with a good dowsing of rainwater.

I knew roughly where I wanted them, so after a bit of discussion we made the decision and started to prepare the holes. The holes needed to be about 1.5 times bigger than the root ball and well prepared. I’d bought some good compost to ensure they have every chance in having a good healthy start in the garden.

The first one we planted is a ‘Nashi’ pear tree. It looks like an apple, but is sweet and juicy like a pear.

The second one is a red cherry. It will have beautiful pinky white blossom to start with, which develops into sweet, juicy cherries.

It was all very exciting, and I was really pleased with how they looked once planted. I just need Brian to stake them for me, to prevent them getting damaged if we have any high winds. I can’t wait now to taste the fruits of our labour. I’m thinking we only need to wait a couple of years at least.

Wash of green

This afternoon we took a stroll up to the point de vue, the village nestled in the vineyards, looked calm and peaceful. The vines are nearly all clipped and pruned now, ready to wake up after their winter break.

A light wash of green is starting to appear across the hillsides, which frames the village, and really makes the contrasting white stone of the church and houses stand out. Such a wonderful time of year.

Something new

Whenever we visit producers caves in Champagne we see something new. Even though we may have visited many times before, it’s always an opportunity to learn something surprising or see something in a different way.

On a recent visit to a favourite producer of ours, Jérôme Cothias we had the chance to experience ‘dégorgement’ again. For those of you that haven’t heard of this process before it’s the moment when the Champagne has spent long enough in the cellar maturing, and is ready to have the dead yeasts removed in readiness to finally release the bottle into the world. Jérôme was kind enough to demonstrate the process by hand. It’s very quick, as the cap is released (with the yeasts captured inside it) and the neck is covered before too much Champagne is released. This slow motion video shows how fast it all is and the skill that is required. As a mechanical process they would freeze the neck to produce a small cube of ice, that is then released from the bottle by the pressure within.

On our way out he also showed us a bunch of young, French, Chardonnay vines that had been grafted onto American rootstock to protect against Phylloxera. He talked us through the preparation of the vine before it arrives with him, ready to be planted. How it’s coated in paraffin wax to help protect the graft through the summer, whilst it’s established at the nursery before they dig them up and send them out to be planted, he’ll be doing this very shortly. There’s always something new and interesting to see and learn.

Preparing for Easter

It’s been a busy couple of days.

It started yesterday, blustery, but bright and sunny through the fast moving clouds. As I peered out of the window, the walled garden was definitely looking in need of a trim. The grass was a beautiful, healthy green, but it had grown a good 6 inches since I cut it about 10 days ago, or was it more like 2 weeks ago?

Our guests for the weekend were arriving later that evening, so I had a whole host of little jobs to get done. I decided to get the lawn cut first, whilst Brian was having a bit of a tidy up in his workshop.

We then headed out to the boulangerie to buy some fresh bread, and to the Intermarché to do a little bit of shopping, where I also found some beautiful orange and red tulips, which I knew would look beautiful on my Easter table.

No tea and cake

It was quite a murky day yesterday; cold, wet and grey. Not wanting the weather to spoil our mood, we decided to head into Châtillon-sur-Seine for a little bit of retail therapy.

One, very little, thing I miss from not living in the UK is visiting a garden centre and enjoying some tea and cake whilst we’re there. It may seem a strange activity to some, but I really used to enjoy it, however they just don’t do that in France, so we have to create a similar experience by visiting a delicious patisserie close by to the garden centre. I shouldn’t complain too much though because the patisserie is very good. Mine was the raspberry tart, and Brian went for a complete chocolate hit, with a hot chocolate and a slice of sponge with a chocolate mousse topping.

Tea and cake break over, we set off for the garden centre. I was actually after a couple of fruit trees, which I’d mentioned a few weeks back. A friend of mine, who is visiting shortly, wanted to treat me, so I was very excited.

I plumped for a cherry tree, and a ‘nashi’ pear tree. We will plant them together when she arrives. It will be great to see them growing through the summer, I just need to ensure I keep them watered well.

Venturing out

The daffodil bulbs I’d planted in my big stone urns are venturing out and starting to show their bright yellow heads. I can’t wait to see them all coming into bloom over the coming days, just in time for an Easter display.

I’d been promising Brian that I would get the last set of shelves linseeded, but I’d been finding it hard to prioritise this with little jobs I’d wanted to get done in the garden. Nevertheless it needed doing, so last night I popped on my gloves and got to work.

As we had needed to build these shelves in place, we had to find a way to help protect the newly painted wall. So we slid some plastic behind them, which meant I didn’t need to be too careful when brushing the linseed on. It really didn’t take long, and now we’ve found the best way to work with linseed we find it a very forgiving product. First we brush it on, leave it for a little while to soak in, then wipe it off with a dry, lint free cloth. This means we don’t get any patchy, shiny patches, and it doesn’t take long to dry. I will put a second coat on in a couple of days.

Biscuits

Following all of Brian’s hard work building the new bookshelves in the bibliothèque I’ve had a few people contact me with regard to his new biscuit jointer. Apparently I hadn’t made it very clear on what exactly the ‘biscuits’ are. Well hopefully this short little video will help fill in any gaps.

Stand tall

Since mowing the slope, which only seems about a week ago now, the garden has certainly had a growth spurt!

The peonies, especially, have shot up, so I bought a couple of frames to help prevent them from flopping over when the blooms get too heavy for the stems, which always happens.

This is the biggest and most advanced peony in the garden. Which we carefully positioned inside the frame, I think it is going to work really well in helping it to stand tall.

Whilst I’m sure this little one, over the coming weeks, will grow into his frame.

I just can’t believe I only bought two, I need about seven more!

A few books

We haven’t finished the shelves yet, but the time had come, and we just couldn’t resist seeing how a few books would look.

It was supposed to be just a few, but before I knew it Brian had unpacked a whole bunch of boxes. Which was actually great news, as some of our books had been hidden away for 4 years, so they needed to come out, they needed to be where we can read them, and dip into them.

I still have some linseeding to do on the final set of shelves, and Brian has some finishing touches to do on the front uprights, but that will all happen over the next few weeks, and won’t affect the books. For now we are really happy to be able to see just how our room will look and feel.

A beautiful day

What a beautiful day.

We couldn’t resist enjoying our morning cup of tea outside, soaking up the sun. What a treat. The garden is starting to spring into life, and I’m loving being able to tidy it up, getting it ready for its spring blooms.

The hyacinths are already out; their scent sweet on the air. The muscari, which I love, are flourishing, poking up through the gravel. I found a few delicate daffodils, which have beautiful multi layered flower heads, tucked into the lavender beds, so I picked a few, along with some lavender for a vase. I must have popped them in the ground last year.

Breakfast

Since moving to France we like to take time and enjoy our breakfasts, it really sets us up for the day. About once or twice a week I will make us a hot breakfast, which I like to keep varied. I buy locally produced sausages, bacon, mushrooms and organic eggs, which are delicious scrambled, boiled, poached or fried. A little bit of salt and pepper and they become the perfect start to the day.

What can I do?

“Jo can you come and give me a hand?” I heard Brian call. I was in the middle of sorting some bits out in the kitchen, so quickly dried my hands and went to help.

“What can I do?” I asked. “Just hold this here please”. He was gluing the final biscuits into place, and needed to do them in situ. Once he’d squirted the glue on, we then had a hairy ten minutes lining it all up, and ensuring it was level before the glue began drying.

He then created a ‘Brian contraption’ to ensure he had pressure in the right places whilst the shelves dried into position.

An evening in Troyes

We needed to pick up Brian’s reading glasses from the opticians in Troyes. We’d obviously spent way too much in there when we had bought our main glasses, as this pair was complimentary!

As we had left it till the afternoon to travel in, and the sun was setting when we left the opticians, we decided we’d grab some supper before heading home. The Indian restaurant we picked was a busy little one near the main cathedral. The brilliant blue sky and the early evening sun made the cathedral really light up, it’s such a statuesque building.

I do like an Indian supper, and obviously I wanted to pick well, so I spent a little while choosing.

Very happy with my choice when it arrived, we both tucked into our lightly spiced and tasty supper.

Profile

The edge of the cupboard unit is not straight. As we want to fix a door to this part Brian needs to cut a filler piece of wood with the same profile as the side panel to level it up. So off he went to his workshop to create the perfect tool for the job, which involved drilling a hole in a piece of wood and poking a pencil through it. He was then able to hold the point of the wood against the cabinet and drag it downwards, drawing onto the piece of wood he had prepared for the filler.

Genius! A perfect fit, and a straight edge to work from.

Déchetterie run

With all the pruning and gardening jobs we’d done over the past couple of months, our little trailer was full to the brim with garden waste. However we still managed to push a little bit more in. With the boot of the car also full, our trip to the déchèterie (tip) was long overdue.

It’s such an easy job really, but it’s a great feeling once it’s completed.

Before heading home we nipped to the little boulangerie in Essoyes to buy some bread and a couple of pain au chocolats, they were very delicious with our morning coffee. Hopefully no one saw me in my very uncoordinated work clothes.

Lining it up

Brian’s having to take a slightly different tack with the final set of shelves, as they are fixing directly onto the cupboard.

After creating the frame and ensuring he has all the shelf pieces lined up where he wants them, he needed to use his biscuit cutter to make the holes in the uprights on the shelf unit already in place. Not very easy, as he couldn’t quite see his marks, so needed to adapt how he cut them.

He wanted to do a dry run on joining them to the main bookcase, which actually seemed to come together easier than we thought.