• Monday, November 19th, 2007
Wood is such a fantastic material. It grows in a huge variety of shapes, sizes and colours. It looks magnificant as a tree and has a multitude of uses. Since coming here to the Limousin, we have learned so much about the value of wood. As a building material for houses, beautiful furniture or most importantly for us, the use of wood for heating our house. When we first bought Noisetieres in 2003, it had an old insert with a false chimney breast built around it. The fire chamber itself was made of glass which didn’t radiate much heat at all. Also you didn’t benefit from the hot chimney because it was covered with so much cladding.
So, in February this year, we had a new wood burner installed – the Godin Jurassien.
It’s a complete cast iron box with a small glass viewing window. It uses a process called “double combustion” which means it reaches temperatures at which most of the substances in the smoke are burnt making it clean to use. Now winter has well and truly arrived, we have been using it in earnest every day. When the fire is going, the wood burner itself and chimney get very hot and radiate a huge amount of heat. So much so, it warms the whole house. Not only that, it’s so efficient, we are only burning about 3 logs in an evening. I have discovered that lighting a fire is a bit of an art and it helps to understand the process of how wood burns to get your wood burner working most efficiently.
The basic principle is that you need to get the flu nice and hot as this gives a good draw. Therefore, lighting the fire with fast burning small pieces of wood to get a good bed of hot coals is the best way to start. After that add slightly larger pieces and when it’s really going well, put the big ones on! We can put up to 55cm long pieces into the burn chamber of our Jurassien, which means we don’t have to worry too much about cutting the wood into really small pieces. So what type of wood is best? The choice is quite broad, but each wood has it’s own properties. Though it goes without saying that all wood used should be seasoned i.e. cut last winter or even the winter before and left to dry.
Fast burn woods useful for starting the fire are softwoods or light hardwoods such as pine, beech, or ash. When the fire is going well, it’s good to add some slow burning wood such as Oak. Oak can cost more than other wood and needs good seasoning but it is the best. However, there are lots of other woods you can use and you will find more information here.
• Saturday, November 17th, 2007
It’s like someone flicked a switch. There we were enjoying the autumn colours and beautiful weather when suddenly we woke one morning to find it was winter. The weather has continued with beautiful blue skies and winter sunshine but the temperatures have plummeted. Last night was the coldest so far at -5 with todays daytime temperature only reaching 4 degrees. It is glorious though and here are some pictures of the winter view in the garden:
View from the window
Morning mist on the water
Fish must be cold!
• Monday, November 12th, 2007
It has been a day to remember for lots of reasons. We went to ride at St Junien’s event “16eme edition – Les Gantiers”. Not just the usual randonee but a RAID for Steve. It is a mountain bike race around one circuit – on this occasion 40km. Everyone is in a category – Steve is Veteran B, but everyone rides together and it is possible to place in the race overall “scratch” as well as your category. It was also Rememberance Day. We wanted to wear the poppy but we were unable to find any here so we made one from a piece of red cloth, a black button and some green ribbon.
On Sunday morning, it was a bit grey and we arrived at the event to sign on at about 7.45am. Said the obligatory hellos to everyone and munched on the croissants and coffee on offer. Steve got kitted up and left to warm up and take a look at the start. At 8.45 they were off and Steve managed to get a good position near the front. 10 minutes later, they sent us off on the Randonee, essentially the same circuit but at a more leisurely pace!
Steve ready to go …
Although the terrain was a lot flatter than the other circuits we have been doing recently, it was very tough and you had to pedal hard all the way round. Mostly forestry trails and tracks through woodland. I arrived back to find Steve all finished. He’s got 2nd Scratch and this meant he was 1st in his category too. Great result.
After getting cleaned up we went to the main hall where they were serving all the food and drinks. At the prize presentation, I was presented with a bunch of flowers for being the first lady home in the 40km ride which was very much appreciated. Steve got his winning cup and tshirt and managed to mention the 11/11/11 when he was asked to say a few words – in french of course.
It took all 3 men to give me my flowers 
To top it all, I had won a prize in the tombola. Well you’ll never guess … a giant pumpkin! Well actually I ended up with two of them as the other winner didn’t want theirs or couldn’t get it home. We had to drive the van and back it up to the hall, then 3 men lifted them into the back. I reckon there’s about 50 kilos in each one. So for the next year it’s pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, mashed roast pumpkin, pumpkin jam, ugh pumpkin on toast…?
Giant pumpkin and I’ve got two!
• Monday, November 12th, 2007
The 2007 Autumn has definitely been one to the remember. The weather has been spectacular and so has the mountain biking. It hasn’t rained since the beginning of September and the trails are dusty dry. Temperatures in September were more like what we would expect in early summer. Although they have dropped to normal autumn levels, the beautiful crisp blue skies more than make up for it. Take a look here to get a taste of where we’ve been and how lucky we are to be able to mountain bike here ….
Click here for more pictures
• Saturday, November 03rd, 2007
We thought we had seen just about everything there was to see around here but yet again, just when you think you’ve seen it all … Another lovely autumn morning and then, from nowhere, a Cormorant lands on the pond! It swam across to one of the ducks to say hello then merrily fished for about 15 minutes. It took quite a few, including another prize goldfish that we didn’t know we had. It then got out onto the banking and waddled around in the garden for a bit, flapping it’s wings and preening itself, before taking off again. I did manage to take a few shots through a pair of binoculars but most came out too blurred. Here is one though that does prove I wasn’t seeing things – there were three of us who witnessed this event!
