Nuts, Nuts and More Nuts

Now this is when we need visitors - to help with harvesting.

The walnut harvest this year has been spectacular with 18 kg hulled so far and maybe another two to come. In total we have 4 walnut trees - one in the field to the east of us and I think the squirrels reckon that that's theirs as not many nuts were collected from there; one by the solar tunnel that's quite young yet still gave a good crop, almost all nicely popped out of their hulls; and two at the drive-side of the orchard. Now these last two are annoying because they overhang the drive so if the fallen nuts aren't picked up pronto then they get driven over and crushed. So it's a constant job collecting them and that's where we need the visitors' help.

Then comes the sweet chestnuts. Now this is a crop that I had never tasted until last year when our neighbours' son and his friend brought us 'un petit cadeau' of an enormous bucketful of them. I tentatively tried cooking with some and they were much enjoyed by all the family. Very high in protein so great all round really. So this year we were out collecting like mad. As well as the two trees in our garden, many of the trees down the drive to us are sweet chestnuts so we have loads in the freezer. As for cooking/baking with them... Hugh Fernley Wittingstall makes it sound easy to roast them in the oven and the skin just pops off but we've found that the nuts inside seem to go a bit hard - like rock! - so we prefer to boil them for a few minutes. Guinea fowl slow cooked with them followed by meringe with creamed sweet chestnuts and sauted apples is just autumn heaven in my book. Mmmmmm. Anyone coming next autumn???

Useful link
http://www.badgersett.com/info/chestnuts/

Power to The People

Or not as the case is at present. We have had a power cut every day for the last four days, ranging in duration from 10 hrs to just 1 hour. The annoying thing is that they always seem to occur at cooking-of-meal-times. The first day I had literally just switched off the hob and was serving up. Rowan said, rather spookily, "Can we have candles?" and lo and behold the power cut out and we needed candles! The second night I had just started the tea so we had to abort and go to McDonalds (yuk). The boys thought it was a great treat. For me it brought back too many memories of not having access to the internet other than via Mac's WiFi. Yesterday it cut at lunch time but that was no major issue as we were just having baggette and a myriad of cheeses. Today again it cut at lunchtime and that made me furious because we had fired up Jesse the Esse just to check that all was in order ready for when the colder weather arrives.

Now Jesse is a wood-burning range that does our cooking, hot water, and various heating systems. She was bought as part of our carbon-neutral, not-having-to-rely-on-external-power-sources drive. Rather irritatingly she actually needs a Laddomat gismo that keeps her water circulating because Roger, the water tank, is higher than she is by 50cm due to the layout of our house. If she didn't have that on the circuit, the back water boiler would boil dry and Jesse would be shafted so to speak. And irritatingly that gismo runs on electricity. And guess what we didn't have today - sigh. So, having got her up to a nice hot test temperature (and all the windows and doors open because it's still warm here), with food lined up for cooking, we then had to 'dump the heat' ie waste all our hot water, and put the fire out tout suite with wet sand. I was less than pleased with EDF, France's electricity provider. However, we're back on now.

Interesting Visitors

Late this afternoon, just as Ben was opening the gates to go off to La Ferte for some DIY stuff, a car arrived with two unknown occupants. They explained something to Ben who then told them that his French wasn't very good and that they should come down to the house and speak to me. So the first I saw was this older couple following Ben down the drive with Ben mouthing that he had no idea what they wanted.

Anyway, it transpired that today was the couple's 49th wedding anniversary, they had been in La Chapelle du Bois at the chiropractor, and that the old man's Grandma used to live here at LPM in the 1950s and he wondered if he could visit his old memories. And it turned out to be very interesting.

Our bedroom used to be two cow byres and the other downstairs bedroom and bathroom was a cave (a darkened store room for preserved foodstuffs and drinks). Our living room encompassed their entire living area of bedroom, kitchen, dining room and bathroom! The patio doors hadn't been there. All the fields were in cultivation and the old man used to come over to work in the fields - he'd lived with his mother and father 6 miles away in St Germain de Coudre. He would ride over on horseback, but walk home over the hills along public footways that are sadly no longer passable due to brambles having taken over. The lady used to live at Le Soucheray at the bottom of our fields and that is how they met.

They were SO touchingly grateful to have been allowed to visit and have said that they would find some old photographs and bring them over.

One Whole Year

So we've now been here one whole year. Any regrets? Nope not one. I absolutely love it here and so does the rest of the family. I miss two things though - speaking in English, and Tesco (or other UK supermarket). There are just so many things that I can't get here - babycorn, muscovado sugar, Rooibosh tea, jelly, Marmite to name but a few. And other things we can get but that are exorbitantly priced in the "World Speciality" section - peanut butter, fajitas, and fish sauce come to mind immediately. Oddly, mangetout aren't very often available and yet you'd think with a French name that France would be its home.

Life here is very seasonal - everything from the obvious of what everyone's doing in a day (like at the moment it's harvesting and preserving), down to the fruit and veg that's available. Now that I'm used to this seasonality in availability of foodstuffs, I have to say that I quite like it. I've had to change from "oh this recipe looks good, what do I need, now let's go and buy this or that" to "what's available right now, ok we'll have ..." In other words, the available ingredients drive what's on the menu rather than the ideas coming first. I've found that it leads to a lot less wastefulness for us as we used to have a fridge stocked with just-in-case veg that we often found gone off.

Caution - Men At Work

Some women would say that that's something *always* to be cautious of - men at work, but in this instance it really does mean what the building site warning says. The Boyz (except S) happily spent today hammering out the walls along the corridor.

Adieu Blue Loo

Hooray, it's finally happening - the hideous blue bathroom and separate (very French) blue loo is due for rip out on Monday and the boys are looking forward to demolishing the walls over the weekend.

Today's task however, was to buy all the sanitaryware, lights, glass blocks, mirrors etc. We had already been to make our choices and to see which were stock items and which were orderable - fortunately all of our choices were all stock items - so you would think that it would be a relatively easy breeze round the store with a trolley just popping stuff in, paying for it, and pushing off. Ho no. The boys demanded one of the trolley cars - tiny small area for collecting merchandise, great big enormous childrens' car on the front that they can get in and 'drive', absolute devil to manoeuvre. Even more difficult to move as B was driving with R sitting on the roof (more on that later). Needless to say we then needed a second trolley of decent size to actually do the shopping. Fortunately there was one with a baby seat on the top so we opted for that and off we set.

All started off well but then B wouldn't give R a go at driving so a squabble broke out and that set the scene for the rest of the trip - we'd collected about half of what we needed and the car trolley was taking on the shape and handling abilities of a large whale with squawking occupants. S then decided he didn't actually like being in the baby seat on the trolley and wanted to be carried, expressed in no uncertain terms by loud screams. Ok, not easy to carry him and steer the trolley but needs must. Next on the list was the loo. A very kind assistant surveyed our predicament and loaded the non-car trolley for us with all the bits that we'd need and the baby seat became holder for the basin. Now I couldn't even see over the top of the trolley but had to steer one-handed peering round the side occasionally. S poops his nappy. Oh great - we still need waste connections - he's yelling, the boys are arguing and now running about misbehaving, I'm trying my best to get what we need but my French is woefully lacking, and my brain feels as though it's bleeding out of my ears. Ben looks like a man that's been pushed over the edge. Waste connections located - MASSES of them and not a scooby as to what we need nor the peace in our mind to even try to work it out. Another kind assistant appeared as if by magic, established what we needed and, I'm sure, thrust it hurriedly into our hands so that we'd take the awful noise away from his department.

At last we're heading for the checkouts. Even this was fraught with difficulty as I had S in my arms and Ben was trying to keep the other two from racing off or harming each other (can you put children on leads???). Then an unhelpful lady checkout person tells R that he's not allowed to climb on the trolley so he throws a massive sulk on the floor - one of the ones where he lies completely prostrate on the ground, whimpering and sticking to the floor like tiles.

It was with great relief that we finally reached the car, having bought muffins and brownies on the way out as bribery and mood-enhancers - funny how chocolate seems to calm things down. So, children cleaned up and strapped into their carseats, we set about loading up the trailer. It was packed... unpacked... repacked... unpacked... and packed again, with various helpful comments being chucked in by passing customers. Oh how I wished I'd had a camera!

But we're home now and everything is decanted and all is peaceful. Funny, looking at the small pile it really doesn't seem as though its aquisition could have caused SO much stress.

Mirabelles

Now 'Mirabelle' is a new name for me. As these little fruits were developing I thought at first that they were plums but they didn't seem to get any bigger than an almond so I reckoned that they were indeed almonds. But they then started going a bit squidgy so I had to rethink and asked my neighbours. "Mirabelles" I was told. Yes, they are small plums but yellow ones. And how appropriate that they are yellow as when they are picked directly from the tree, warmed by the sun, they taste just as sweet as honey, like a little sunburst in your mouth. Mmmmm delicious. R and I picked loads and loads (B wouldn't help as he's now scared of the geese and wouldn't come up to the orchard - they don't like him as he chased them too often when they were little. No surprise there!). We now have 8 Le Parfait jars of them duly sterilised, and a massive bag of them in the freezer. The thought is to have "Sunshine Crumble", as R has named it, in the middle of winter. There were still masses left but the geese and hens adore them too so they get daily treat for free.