Roadkill

Very sadly, this old bird flew into the front of my car. It was immediate death.  I slowed in surprise and shock, the van behind overtook me, the approaching vehicle passed and in the mirror, seeing the pheasant lying in the road,  thought, "Oh what a waste," and reversed to rescue it.  Having researched what to do, I bravely dunked it in boiling water in my preserving pan cauldron, wet plucked it and wearing gloves emptied the poor thing, set it on paper in a sealed container in the fridge for my memory to fade with instructions to  Captain Sensible to braise it after 5 to 7 days. It was a  bit of a tough old bird, but I blessed it and thanked it for providing food as  braised casserole, a meat pie and soup.

Although there was a time of great poverty when my children remember me trying to kill a bird by driving at them, which was stupidly dangerous of me, I have never to my knowledge killed a game bird in this way.  I am not proud of taking a life but it did just fly straight into my car.

I do not wish to repeat the experience of plucking and gutting but would do so again if I had to!
And I was a vegetarian for over 23 years!

For those who are interested in history

I found this very interesting site:

http://www.history.co.uk/this-day-in-history/May-08.html

You can click on any other date than the date of whatever is "today" and read and see  A VERSION of history for that particular date from the past.

I thought I need to learn more about my own country of  birth and the history of the world.

Dry weather in France

Evidently April 2011 was the hottest April in France since 1900. 

Drought is occurring in the North of France.  Drought will push up fruit and vegetable prices as well as the price of feed for cattle  and other meat oriented animals.  
To the gloom and doom,  we can add  petrol costs which are rising and unfavorable whilst we ferry back and forth between two houses.  The Sterling / Euro exchange is far from favourable.  I was waiting for it to improve before converting my pension on the currency market but the rate has become steadily worse.  I'll just have to bite the bullet soon!  One compensation is that if we were in UK the taxes would be higher overall. Well, that is our argument!
However,  it is usually hotter here in the spring and summer but slightly colder here in the Winter than UK.   I don't mind cold but do prefer warmer weather and that is the bonus. In winter we have the warm woodburners.

European Pond Terrapin

The European pond turtle is a terrapin.  It is  of a medium size varying from 12 to 38 cm in length. Its shell is brown with a hint of green with yellow spots. Emys orbicularis species have become rare in most countries even though they are widely distributed in Europe. They are a protected species and are not allowed to be kept as pets.

So, what a wonderful and unexpected surprise Captain Sensible received on his walk with camera in hand. He thought it was a tortoise but its tail alerted me to the fact that it may be a terrapin. I am glad he left it where he was because it was in its natural habitat.  If it were a tortoise I had wondered whether it should go to the vet as someone may have lost it.  But that decision was not necessary.

I did some research on Wikipedia.   They prefer to live in wetland areas surrounded by large, natural, woodland but can travel up to 100 metres away from the water and occasionally up to 4000 metres to lay their eggs in nests which they may return to year after year or they will travel for feeding.

I wish I had seen it.

A few days before that we met unexpectedly, a lady who is keeping three tortoises.  As they are over 15 years old she is worried that people might come and steal them .. so we are sworn to secrecy.

With grateful thanks to Captain Sensible for permission to use his photos.  Click on them for a larger view.

Easter

A day of reconciliation. 

A day to accept and acknowledge errors, failings, weaknesses and "to accept the things I cannot change" and "to have the courage to change the things I can" and "to have wisdom to know the difference".

 

Patience, time, appreciation, tolerance are required to make changes. 

Despite days, hours and parts of time, with difficult moments, there is strength to pick myself up, to try again and again, to be determined not to be beaten and to make the next step - pas a pas - to work at confronting struggles as they occur, one day at a time.

To forgive but not to forget.   

To remember.

To acknowledge what my dearest daughter told me,  

that the past is not the future.

To create change can be rewarding. 

Out of death, growth and life will come.

Frosts in April or May?

Although we have a way to go for the following dates, and as a reply to “DaysontheClaise”  with their posting "Frost Candles at the Ready"  which mentions the installation of special candles in vineyards, ( a lesson for which I thank S & S), I feel bound to write about the Frost Saints' Days, which our French neighbours have often alerted us to in previous years.   

The dates are May 11, 12, 13 when three consecutive days in May mark the feasts of St. Mammertus, St. Pancras, and St. Servatus.  In the wine-growing districts of France, a severe cold spell occasionally arrives,  inflicting serious damage on the grapevines. Although scientists claim that the unseasonable frost is caused by air currents blowing off a late breakup of polar ice in the north, some people in rural France believed that it is the result of having offended one of the three saints, who for this reason are called the "frost saints."

In Germany, too, feelings toward these three saints are mixed, especially among those whose livelihood depends on agriculture. They call them "the three severe lords," and farmers believe that their crops are not safe from frost until May 13 has passed. French farmers have been known to show their displeasure over a cold snap at this time of year by flogging the statues and defacing the pictures of Mammertus, Pancras, and Servatus.

Evidently, the growing season has to get past these dates in May safely, if at all possible, to ensure a chance for the cropsin the potager or fruits in the orchard to survive. 

I have only ever heard of the second saint linked to St Pancras Station in London, UK.  As for the first and third,  I suppose I ought to do some research but do not have immediate time.  Mammertus makes me think of mammary glands and Servatus makes me think that I should serve myself as well as others!  Flippant or not?

Not being NOW religiously-minded, I do know that one year recently we were afflicted by frosts in May (was it last year?) and our potager crops were mostly unsuccessful.   So much so, that this year, and because of other circumstances, we are hardly going to plant anything.  We are fortunate enough to have a marvellous French producer of almost bio veg in our village at incredibly reasonable prices…….we are going to support this French family to receive or seasonal fresh vegetables so as to get on with other facets of our lives and thank the Saints that we won't have to dig, weed and harvest the crops and therby save our own personal energies! 

With thanks to Wikipedia.

Part 2 The Spring moves forward as the clock changes time

You have to have read the previous posting.

It is almost 21h, that is 9pm, new time, Spring time.
I just wandered outside with the rain spitting as it does in this region and down at the woodland at the end of the field which is the garden at Village de Vaux can be heard the nightingale preparing her speech and not yet in full song.  I  am in love. She or he who is so enchanting must surely fill hearts... but not of those who cannot hear.
To be unable to hear would be terrible. It would be worth the hearing aid.

Listen to this.

Read this.

Hark! that's the nightingale,
Telling the self-same tale
Her song told when this ancient earth was young:
So echoes answered when her song was sung
In the first wooded vale.
      - Christina Georgina Rossetti, Twilight Calm
   
Thank you Spring. Thank you March.

The Spring moves forward as the clock changes time

Now the rain is sprinkling the land after days of glorious sunshine. Dry weather and warmth started their promise for a summer to celebrate life.

The daffodils in my new garden at Angles sur L'Anglin have had to be watered three times a day to prevent them lying prostrate on the ground in the heat and drought, but at Village de Vaux they do not appear to need extra water.  Tulips are coming into bloom. Cowslips (les coucous) have been in flower for over a week.  The cherry and plum trees blossom, but are almost finished.  The bees have been about their work.  I made a herb garden from the bonfire ashes. It’s a kind of raised bed with recycled wood to create an edge.  Boxwood plants surround the edge and it is intended to be a sensory garden. There are no grand plans just an impulse to create something interesting.  Elsewhere flower seeds have been scattered and plants transplanted and there is more to do. There is always more to do. It must be a pleasure rather than a chore.

Before Christmas I purchased several shrubs. Now they stand in a row intending a hedge between neighbouring gardens.  The black redstart and the robin vie with each other for worms revealed in the earth. Digging 12 deep holes, filling with compost and then the shrubs was hard so I have given up for the moment on putting down textile fabric.  Logistics and energy went out of my head.  

My French neighbour who rarely has conversation came to the boundary to ask questions about what was this and what was I going to do with that, then asked me round for coffee but we had tea and proceeded to ask even more questions about the house, telling me her viewpoint on what needed to be done and how she would do it, and what the price should have been.  Hm… I did retaliate with questions so admit that I tried to deflect the interrogation away from my private life. Did I understand her French correctly?  Hm… She thinks I should not have lavender in my herb garden because lavender is huge.  It can be true of course, but also there are some pretty dwarf-type varieties of lavender and I do like French lavender flowers.

The first lizard of the year was seen on Thursday and on Friday the reinettes (small green tree frogs) began to chuckle to each other.  Every day I open the window and wait with bated breath to hear the cuckoos and nightingales that abound the rear of Village de Vaux and create magic in my life with their incessant song. This morning I am rewarded with the call of the Cuckoo in the woodland at the end of the field.  I hear it, but it takes several seconds to register …aha, there she is!  Now I await the Nightingales, which are private and hide themselves from view. They lure with their captivating, enchanting song.  The house martins and swallows arrived about a week ago screeching and squealing as also fighter planes flew overhead. Turtledoves romantically canoodle and repeat their cooing. Pheasants, or partridges more likely, are chook-chooking in the field beyond the grape vines, hidden from my view.

Loirets or maybe the glis glis (edible dormouse) called “bandits” are in the combles.  As there is no accessible attic we will have to remove the roof tiles to  check on what is happening up there.  I lie in bed with a fly swat and bang the ceiling and walls at the least sound of entry or exit of the little darlings!  They woke me up the other night with a swishing and swirling as if a train was arriving or as if a waterfall had appeared. I think they are mating!  So sweet looking but a nuisance.

Blogging has taken a bit of a step backwards as I am pretty exhausted with manual labour but Captain Sensible has been able to make progress on my new house….little by little......we will arrive.

I oscillate between hope and despair, of pessimism and optimism: I realise that dreams are made to be broken if ever they get created.  

Yet, walking along the lane of life in France I am transported into WONDERLAND.

I am trying to play the piano more frequently. Yesterday, it was just one note, one particular note, Db in its melodic and harmonic context, that reduced me to sobs of tears.  Chopin does that. On other days a sequence of notes and their harmonies ill have created heart-wrenching pain but I never know when it is going to happen if indeed it does. Sometimes I am afraid to play because I don't want to cry when I play. Sometimes I play and create pure inner smiling pleasure. Music can make me dance with joy, it makes me move, it gives me joy, it makes me as happy as a canary in a cage as well as an emotional wreck. It has been too long insufficient in my life.

Inspiration in the kitchen with Salmon and Rosti potatoes

January 13th 2011

I felt inspired to cook something interesting and different as I had offered to cook for tonight. I just love cooking salmon. It is so simple and usually so delicious that it needs very little to accompany it.

I peeled the last of the unsuccessful 'tiny' potatoes of the Charlotte variety. They have lasted to now so how is that unsuccessful?  Because they are small and we have had an abundance of small potatoes and I am the only one who is willing to peel them. They have not always needed to be peeled but they are fast throwing out shoots.  Several ideas in my head amounted to opening up the very nearly vegetarian cookbook, one of those Australian cookbooks that are so marvellous, and I espied a meal we enjoy.

Rosti Charlotte potatoes, Fresh Tail Cut of Salmon, Creme Fraîche mixed with cream, wasabi, seasoning, lemon juice and tarragon,  plus well-washed mâche which is like watercress and is a healthy eating food, of which we buy from our charming village 'producteur'.

There was half a bottle of delicious refrigerated Cremant de Loire opened but well-recorked, with less of a fizz but stillaplenty to accompany this January evening meal folowing a day of shopping for flooring materials and realsing that the January sales have started!

Age knows no Mercy

When you get to my age and read about the death of a particular woman from when 'Times have been a changing', and from when Times long ago produced male musical heroes who made one girlishly hysterical, one knows one is on the long long climb downhill!!

Suze-Rotolo  was 67 and I have that Freewheelin' LP and it's cover somewhere I'm sure.
They were in love.   Then listen to This

March begins  but yesterday was not a good start!
My mother's been in hospital unexpectedly with bronchial problems and I hear again of more acquaintances and friends who have cancer.   Life isn't easy.  I weep too much as it is.

My car needs a lot of money to be repaired. My heart has been pounding as to what decision to make. Should I let it limp to death and abandon it for another  that I know not so well.... or give it a kiss of kindness and hope it WILL be kind to me and see me through for another few months or even a year, until I can get it together to buy a newer model!

Good news on the house front with thanks to Captain Sensible ..... a floor is being laid and rooms have the sign of being loved and are keen to be lived in having been unlived in for almost two years.  I DO SO HOPE to get my brain and life in gear to write that other blog.

Spring HAS to give way to NEW LIFE even though the bitter cold of today  has said goodbye to the FALSE HOPE of the February warm weather.

March must hurry forwards to April and Easter and a time when a woodburner will not be required.