The lovely February weather has given me the chance to start Sowing vegetable and flower seeds. As there is still a risk of frosts and cold weather, all the seeds have to be planted under cover.
I don’t have the luxury of having a posh greenhouse or cold frame, but I am rapidly learning since being in France, that you make the most of what you have or can find. So I have turned the patio into a “shanty cold frame” area to get my seeds started.
The supermarkets throw out huge numbers of wooden boxes which the fruit and vegetables are delivered in. Most will leave them outside for people to collect. They are made of extremely thin lightweight wood and when broken up, can be used as marker sticks to label all the pots. Not only that, they are just the right size for loading up with the pots and then with a simple layer of polythene sheeting over the top – you have your cold frames!
During the last couple of weeks I have been sewing seeds in pots and now they are starting to germinate. There is something about “growing your own” that gives me great satisfaction. The new vegetable patch is almost now complete and will be ready for when the seedlings are big enough to transplant. There are a number of things I’m trying to grow this year which I’ve never tried before so I will report on how I get on, but for now, here I am – truly content!
I couldn’t decide if it was legwarmers, knee warmers, arm warmers …..? We set off along some lovely trails, which were all bone dry by now due to the glorious weather of the last week or so. We did some of our favourite routes and we were having a great ride.
We’ve done about 2 hours now and Steve says, “another 5 or 15 minutes”. I reply “another 15, it’s such a lovely day”.
He worked out the general direction we needed and so we followed a small lane then took a foresty trail which we had never been on before.
This is what it looks like when it has a good head of leaves.
Fortunately, no serious damage was done and he got away with a scrape and a black eye.If you were wondering what I was doing, my job was to pick up the good sized chopped logs and stack them for drying.Also, I was piling up the mound of twisted branches into piles. It’s quite incredible how much wood you can cut off one tree.The whole process took us a couple of days, but finally it was good and pollarded. Willows are very fast growing trees and we expect it to have a full head on once again this summer.
A couple of days later, our neighbour Lucien popped over for a chat and we were regailing the tale of the slap in the face. He simply said “Oui, c’est vivant!” Well he should know a thing or too about it, he’s always cutting trees or logs over at his place. Also, Lucien is a carpenter and he’s got the stubs to show for it!
Since regularly riding the Randonee events back in 2007, I have been asked many times to join the Beauvallet Cyco-Club run by Théodore. He’s really enthusiastic and keen to encourage female cyclists into the sport.
like to stop and eat with him. We gratefully accepted and we helped lay tables out in two rows.
Bonjour Théodore,
When it comes to eating and drinking, the French have slightly different customs to us. In general, they have their big meals at lunchtime so you don’t normally have dinner invites. It is normally for an “aperitif” which consists of a drink and some nibbles not unlike a small buffet. Wine is something they drink with a meal, so in the evening its whisky and beer for the boys and something quite sweet like port or muscadet for the girls.
