Changing weather and changing hens

Apart from last Sunday, the weather hasn't been good this week.  We've had lots of rain again and hard frosts on the non-rainy days.  I've been taking photographs across a neighbours garden first thing in the morning when I go up the lane to do the animals and also photos of the calvaire.  If you tip your screen back slightly you wil get the full colour saturation.

 

 

 

 

 

I've found the clouds interesting this week too with the changing weather they've been producing really strange patterns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the lane a couple of mornings ago.  I love this time of year when the sunrise coincides with when I am out with the animals.   

 

Frozen raindrops on the stems of the acer in my garden.

At the end of this week my gorgeous grandson, Charlie, will be seven years old and my first born, Matthew, will be thirty-one.  How are the years passing so quickly?  How is this year passing so quickly, already 24 January it hardly seems possible.

I have been moving the hens around into different areas as this coming week four red hens and one black bantam are arriving  courtesy of a friend going back to England for two months and I'm also getting a trio of Araucanas - blue egg laying hens.  There are too many cockerels on the field and as they are maturing now they are looking for trouble amongst themselves.  Sunday will see four of them going to a hen keeper from Normandy who is looking to expand her gene pool and I may, in the future, get some cream Orpingtons from her if they incubate and grow successfully.  One Cream Legbar cockerel will go to the breeder who's selling me the Araucanas, again to give new blood to her stock.  I do love my hens and it will be good to enjoy new ones settling in.  Here are two of the Cream Legbar cockerels who will be leaving me.

Three things I like: 

1.   Going for a Chinese with a friend for the first time in ages.
2.   Sitting outside in the sunshine on Sunday to read my Book Club book.
3.   Booking into the diary in early summer, the first visit for friends from England. 

 

Counterfeit currency and blunders

 

This morning I drove the short distance to the field and having fed and watered the animals I then went on to the Post Office in the next village to send a large envelope to England.

I didn’t recognise the youngish woman behind the counter and asked if she was new since the summer. She replied that she had changed from glasses to contact lenses and had cut her hair and changed the style, so that explained that – I wasn’t losing the plot completely then.  Carolyn, for that was her name, reminded me of the conversation which we had in the summer when I said that after my gastric bypass people who knew me didn’t recognise me after losing half my weight.

I handed over the envelope and she weighed it. I also asked for four stamps for letters to England and handed her a ten euro note. She passed it under a security light and it failed the test. Having filled in a set of forms to pass the dodgy note to the right department she handed me my copy and I handed over a twenty euro note. This too failed the test. We looked at each other, both surprised. Then the penny dropped.  

On 3 January I had a morning of blunders – I should have stayed in bed that day.

First, while feeding the rabbits I fell in their grassy area because of all the mud. I stripped off, dressed again and put all my dirty clothes into the washing machine on the way to the car to go shopping. After about two minutes of driving I thought I had left my mobile in the pocket of my fleece I came back to the house and quickly stopped the machine but the pockets were empty thank goodness.

Next I drove to SuperU and when I got out of the Land Rover I realised I didn’t have my wallet with me.  Luckily, a search of the vehicle yielded €40 so I was still able to do some shopping. 

When I returned to the car park with my shopping trolley I found I didn’t have my keys.  I hadn’t locked the vehicle fortunately, and there were another set of keys hidden in it.  I went back into the shop and reported the loss of my keys giving them my ‘phone number in case they were found.

I drove home and having unloaded the car I went into the utility area to empty the washing machine.  I took the clothes out and as usual swept my hand around the interior for the sock that usually sticks to the drum and found my wallet.  I had been carrying it with the laundry  earlier and must have just put everything into the machine.

I dried out the paper money and the wallet over the woodburner and the only things to have suffered terminal damage were some non-laminated membership cards and my new 2014 Mutuelle health card. 

About half an hour, SuperU called me to say my keys had been handed in to the Information Desk.  So all was well that ended well – but all this happened before 10.45am – I was frightened to do anything else during the rest of the day just in case!

As soon as I told Carolyn the story she destroyed the forms she'd completed and handed me back the twenty euro note, using the ten euro for payment.  She was sure that the washing the notes had produced this false result.  One of my friends on Facebook suggested I had been money laundering - lol.

While she was doing all this a man entered the Post Office. I knew him but couldn’t remember his name – he told me it was Gilda. Ah – the plumber who did the work on my house renovation back in 2006.  He looked at me and gasped, astonished at the difference in my appearance for he hadn’t seen me since before my gastric bypass. It was extraordinary that we had just been talking about this before Gilda came in. He talked to Carolyn for a few minutes but kept looking back at me and shaking his head in disbelief. It’s lovely when you know you’ve changed so much for the better that you are unrecognisable.

Here’s yesterday's beautiful loaf, home made soups - mushroom and ratatouille - which I've been enjoying this week.  I love comforting soup with crusty bread or hot-buttered toast when the weather's bad.

 

 

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   My grandson, asking to talk to me on the 'phone when I'm chatting with his Mum.

2.   Skyping with friends holidaying in Tobago even though I have to look at the sunshine and the blue, blue sea from their balcony.

3.   Working my way through the freezer and coming up with new recipe ideas.

Rain, rain, rain and baking - not the weather - food!



This year seems to be galloping along.  I can't believe it's already eleven days into 2014.  The weather has continued much as it finished 2013.  Rain, rain, rain and more rain.  The short cut I take up a grassy slope to the lane on my way to the animals is now too soggy to climb.  Where water might usually run along the ground, there is actually a small waterfall coming down off the road surface.

 

 

As a result of the appalling weather I have been baking and cooking more than usual.  I am also trying to stop using all the freezers and am aiming to use up the food from one of them instead of continuing to buy things so often.  Lately my bread hasn't been rising well, but I have changed my recipe and now I'm not having a problem.  This white loaf and the three rolls I made with the same dough, which had sunflower seeds and cheddar cheese added, rose beautifully and tasted great.

 

 

 

I also cooked a duck and ate the leftovers in a pie, in the same way as I did the pie below, which had chicken and ham in it.

 

 

One day this week, I managed to drop a box into which I'd put six of our eggs for a neighbour.  I ended up using the whites for meringues, which leaked a little but tasted just fine.

 

 

Now for the obligatory proud Mum and Grandma bit:  here are Libby and Charlie - taken last week and Oliver and Mia taken over Christmas.

 

The Christmas tree was taken down on twelfth night and somehow I managed to struggle out to the garden with the naked tree and leave it on the terrace.  Although I love Christmas and all the stuff that goes with it, when the tree is up I can only walk one way round the kitchen table and it's good to have my home back to normal again.

 

 

It was good to get back to bowls after the Christmas break and we had yet more new members so I feel really positive about the Club's future.  I was told that the lane between St Gelven where we play and the village before it had been flooded last week so it was lucky that the water had gone down enough to drive along that way.  The waters are high everywhere though and all the streams and lakes have overflowed their banks.

 

Although I have a steel, I have never been good at sharpening knives.  I dropped off a dozen kitchen knives to my neighbour, Christian, who sharpened some for me previously, back in the summer.  Yesterday, his wife, Paulette, came round to return them all keen and seriously sharp.  I have never managed to cut onions into such small pieces and so neatly.  

 

In the evening Paulette and Christian had aperitifs to which the whole hamlet were invited.  In my head aperitifs are drinks before a meal and it's always difficult to know if you are staying for a short time or staying on for food.  Last night everyone had nibbles with the aperitifs, most of us drinking kir, the Breton favourite of cassis and champagne or sparkling white wine. 

 

We then sat at the table and had various cold meats, radishes, cornichons and bread, then mini, mini, quiches followed by a selection of cheeses and to finish far Breton cooked with prunes and the Epiphany cakes, galettes des rois with the hidden fève.

 

Fève means "bean", the tradition dates back to Roman times, when a real bean would be baked into the cake in the same was that we put a coin in a Christmas pudding.  Some bakeries still use a real bean, but these days it is more often a little porcelain figurine which is found in someone's slice and they are crowned King/Queen for the day.  Jean-Luc found the little figure last night and was duly awarded the golden crown.   It was lovely evening with lots of laughter. 

 

Yesterday was a very social day for me as friends, on their way back to England, came for lunch.  I made chicken, gammon and mushroom pies with spiced red cabbage, buttered carrots and mash.  Uncooked pies on the left.  On the right, this was a plate I repeated today, without the leaf decoration, for my lunch and, of course, the pastry rose much better when there weren't guests to feed!

 

Going back to the weather.  The damp air with the early morning mist has shown up lots of lovely spider webs throughout the garden.   I find it very difficult to photograph them, as to focus on something so fine is problematic with the camera seeking out more solid items.

 

 

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   The weather today, which is now sunny with blue skies and no rain - a temporary change but very welcome.

2.    Collecting the first duck eggs for a very long time now that they're laying again.

3.    Finding half price chocolate truffles on the post-Christmas supermarket shelves.

December 2013 in St André - lovely!

Happy New Year to everyone reading this.

 

It seems that I haven't posted since early December but in my defence it has been quite a busy time.   Two Christmas lunches for groups to which I belong.  First the Writers' Group enjoyed lunch at La Lanterne Rouge in Pontivy

 

 

The second was the Book Club Christmas lunch at Jerome et Virginie's bar/restaurant in Lanrivain, thankfully close to me so I didn't have far to drive.  I wore jeans for the first time in my life!

 

 

 

 

 

When I arrived home I let my hair down.  I don't often wear it loose.

 

 

The weather, on the whole, has been absolutely atrocious with gale force winds and endless rain.  The field is a quagmire of liquid mud which liberally coats my fleece and trousers every time I slip over.  I can't believe the ground is so sodden this early into winter.  The night before Christmas Eve the winds were so strong I was sitting downstairs doing stuff on the laptop at 03.00hrs.  In the cold light of day I found this:

 

 

My polytunnel had collapsed in the winds.  I am hoping that the frame maybe prove to be ok and I'll just have to buy another cover - we only replaced this cover in the Spring.  Still, I had it easier than my friends.

 

I should have been going to Sue and Daryl and their son, Dave, for Christmas Day and Boxing Day but on Christmas Eve morning they unfortunately came downstairs to 12"/30cm of water in the downstairs rooms so festivities moved here to St André.  They are mostly dried out now and hoping that it doesn't happen again.  I enjoyed having them here and it meant I had company without leaving home which is always good in my book.

 

I prepared the 6 kilo turkey which my friends brought with them by slathering it in lots of butter, seasoning and streaky bacon slices.  Inside the cavity I placed oranges and onion.

 

 

 

As you can see they set to work doing the preparation, cooking and carving on Christmas Day.  The turkey cooked beautifully thanks to a glance at Delia's suggestions for timing and temperature.  Sue did two different stuffings which she cooked separately and very good they were.

 

 

My son, Oliver and his partner Emma allowed Mia free reign with the Christmas pressies under their tree.

 

 

And another photo this time with Charlie holding Mia - two of my very favourite people!

 

 

 

My Christmas tree was decorated by my Scottish friend, Jane, and as you can see she did an excellent job.  When we brought the tree inside it had been drinking in the fish pond for a couple of weeks and had frozen into ice on the surface!f

 

 

The Sunday after Christmas a friend, Colin, invited lots of us to have an outside lunch - yes outside in December - with veggie chill, beef casserole and turkey curry at his home.  How he managed to order up the blue-skied, warm and sunny day I do not know, but it was lovely and the sun shone through the whole afternoon.

 

 

New Year's Eve saw me in Jane and Paul's home, having a traditional Scottish starter of Ham Hock and Lentil Veggie soup which was delicious.  A couple with their two boys were also invited and we had a lovely evening seeing in the New Year.  I came home to watch the fireworks in London welcoming in 2014 in England.  My oldest son, Matthew, called me just before I went to sleep at 01.20am - I could just hear him against all the celebrations at his end of the line.  

 

Here are the two youngest cats this afternoon sleeping off their turkey and ham leftover lunch.

 

 

 

So that's Christmas and New Year's Eve dealt with and now we're going into a new year.  If the weather can improve it would be good but even with the rain my life is good and I am looking forward to enjoying another year here in St André, and spending time with friends from here and those coming to stay from the UK. 

 

 

HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR, Everyone! 

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Seeing all the Christmas cards with their messages from friends around the world.

2.   Celebrating the season with friends and catching up with family on Skype.

3.   The first day of a brand new year.