For the first time since I started blogging back in February, I’ve discovered that sometimes life just takes over and blogging has to take a back seat for a while.
In the three weeks since I last posted, we’ve arrived in Normandy France
As soon as the rain stopped and things started to dry off, I also found myself expending considerable time and effort mowing the hayfield which was threatening to engulf the house. Actually, mowing the grass is one of the jobs I really enjoy here – fresh air, healthy exercise and the illusion that I’m creating a lawn out of a patch of bumpy and overgrown orchard. Meanwhile, my doughty, 87-year-old mother-in-law has been busy digging out a narrow flower border along the front wall of the house, which we have today planted out with lavender and calendula and London Pride.
Talking of orchards, I’ve also been enjoying another of my favourite occupations this week. At the local gardening club on Tuesday I was given an unexpected, but very welcome, invitation to help myself to a friend’s remaining raspberries and blackcurrants, as she’d already picked all they could possibly use. This meant of course that I had to spend the next day turning them into jam, with the aid of my trusty, travelling jam pan. Stop laughing over there – you should know that there are some things one simply can’t leave behind for three months – especially in summer.
So nothing exciting, but all very pleasant, and absorbing enough to leave me with very little thinking time. Assisi
Oh, Perpetua, but it DOES sound exciting and absolutely wonderful -- fresh air, fresh berries, newly mowed grass, reconnecting with friends and cool weather! (As I'm writing this, it is 115 outside!) I loved reading your update. I could almost smell and feel the freshness all around you. Thanks so much for sharing a bit of your early summer in France!
ReplyDeleteAn orchard -oooh how wonderful. Your summer home sounds fabulous. I'm sure your new flower border will reward you for years to come too. I can't seem to get lavender to grow here - the winters seem to kill it off. I love the woodshed photo. It reminded me of those puzzles - how many X can you find. I looked at it for a while before I found ALL the kittens.
ReplyDeleteThe summer home from heaven and raspberries!
ReplyDeleteWhat bliss.
It's a pity you can't send raspberries by blog.
Perhaps the day will come, meanwhile have a wonderful summer.
Don't worry, I think that many of us find that real life swallows up blog time in the summer. It's probably very good for us all! I'm startled to hear that the rasps are over already in northern France - ours are nowhere near ripe yet. Enjoy the jam-making! :)
ReplyDeleteReal life overtaking blogging - sounds quite healthy to me!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely description and greta pics too. Have a wonderful time.
I join the others in expressing delight and a slight bit of jealousy. Raspberries, kittens, orchards, gardening, France, new mown grass.... sounds like heaven. Glad to know you are having life abundant. Thanks for sharing your description of it with us!
ReplyDeleteViva the jam pan!
ReplyDeleteBlogging can always take a back seat when you have so much to do. Enjoy your summer...it sounds absolutely perfect xx
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome, Kathy :-) I see what you mean - what is different seems exciting and Normandy is probably as different from the Arizona desert as one could imagine. How do you cope with such extreme heat? That's 46C!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, it's lovely here, Sian, in a very quiet and gentle way. It suits us very well, as we're not exactly excitement-seekers.
ReplyDeleteHopefully I can manage to protect the flower border from the neighbour's young cattle, who graze our garden when we're not here. Almost every old house in our bit of Normandy has apple trees around it and we're lucky enough also to have cherries and a small plum tree, plus a pear tree with inedible pears. Sadly our little damson tree was snapped off by the wind just after we arrived and none of its heavy crop will ripen.
Yes, I can't believe my luck, Ray. I've never made raspberry jam before, as our few canes in Wales never produced enough fruit at one time and raspberries are too expensive to buy for jam-making. It's a good thing I had some empty jars here and brought some with me (for apricot jam when the jam apricots hit the shops).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reassurance, DB. This is my first summer as a blogger and I couldn't believe how much time had gone by since I last posted.
ReplyDeleteYes, the raspberries are past already here after a very hot and dry spring followed by enough rain to swell them very quickly. They were really too ripe for jam, but I made it the French way and hope it will keep until we've finished it, which won't be long if DH has anything to do with it!
Quite right, Catriona and a good lesson in priorities :-) I'll have to wait for the rainy days to have my thinking time. At the moment the weather is good, so we're trying to do things with DH's mother before she goes home on Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Penny, and realise how very fortunate I am. The kittens are a new element this year. There are a lot of feral cats in rural France and one obviously had kittens in our woodshed. They're about 8 weeks old and absolutely gorgeous, but quite wild and can't be approached. I just have to adore them from a distance.
ReplyDeleteROFL, Fly! :-) I followed your good example and now take my jam pan wherever I go. Last summer I left it at home and missed the chance to make lots of apricot jam....
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ayak. I like to have something to show for my time, even though I can laze with the best of them when it's very hot. Thankfully it's a pleasant 20+C (around 70F) this weekend, which is just my kind of temperature. DH's mother thinks it's a bit in the chilly side, but we think she has some salamander in her ancestry....
ReplyDeleteHi Perpetua,
ReplyDeleteWhich is the third of your three countries? Have I missed those posts?
Lucky you. I love France!
Hi Anita. Our permanent home is in Mid-Wales and has been for nearly 40 years. We spend some time in France, some in northern Scotland and the rest in Wales. One day we'll be too old for all this travelling, but for the time being it suts us very well.
ReplyDeleteI love France too and have done since my first visit on a school trip at the age of 16, nearly 50 years ago.
We'll be zooming past you next week, car laden with whatever it is it gets laden with year after year! I remember last year was cold through Wimbledon -- fires every night for about three weeks. This year I think it's been warmer and of course we are later. The Man has been taught by my best friend to make jam -- last summer -- that pan stays in France! Anyway, he has really really taken to it. When we get there it will be just about plum time and we have loads of plums and the jam he made was divine -- I'm on the last jar now! Blog when you can -- we all love reading your posts -- but enjoy the French life first! Plenty of time for Assisi later...
ReplyDeleteKittens in the woodshed? How much nicer than "something nasty". I can only make out one pair of ears in your photo. How many ears are there altogether? It's wonderful how cats always find their way to you and your DH. Probably because of your liking for quiet remote houses with outbuildings. If you were there all the time I reckon a couple at least would wind up (semi-)living with you.
ReplyDeleteI rescued Our Ma's aluminium jam pan from her shed just ahead of the house clearers, and brought it home. It is now in the Welsh House, as I think I will have more time and inclination to make preserves and pickles when there, somehow. We also now have an old family heirloom shooting stick in the boot of the car (our new-to-us four-year-old Peugoet 307 diesel turbo) as one never knows when or where one may be seized with the need to sit down.
And an antique oil lamp has gone up there as well, but the copper warming pan is in the Herts House.
We have also rescued the bread maker from Our Ma's Kitchen which The Husband got her for Mother's Day about a decade ago. He has read the instructions (we don't think she ever tried to use it) and it makes jam and marmalade, allegedly. This, we think, could be very interesting...
I'll remember to wave at every passing csr, Broad, just in case:-) Hope you have a good journey and find everything in order when you arrive.
ReplyDeleteDH's role in jam-making is limited to picking the fruit (yellow cherries this morning) and eating the finished produst in large quantities.... Wishing The Man lots of plums and an easy set :-)
If you click on the photo to enlarge, you should be able to find four sets of ears, Baby Sis, one on the left and three on the right. They are completely wild and I can't get closer than 3 metres to them without them disappearing behind the piles of wood. I reckon I could tame them given time, but not sure it's fair even to try, then disappear.
ReplyDeleteGlad you found some useable and interesting items before the house was cleared. I gather my breadmaker can be used to make jam, but I'd miss standing at the stove stirring, so I've never tried it. Let me know how you get on if you give it a go.
Glad you're settling in to your summer home - sounds like there's lots to do! We've moved this week too but I also found time to stir up a pot or five of jam - fig with lemon, orange and walnuts. I do miss a bit of raspberry jam though - memories of my grandparents.
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful summer - blogging is no substitute for real life, is it!
Ax
You enjoy standing at the stove stirring? Well, each to his own. I like sitting in the sun with a cold drink and a good book.
ReplyDeleteMaybe standing at the stove stirring is an active meditation for you, and your mind gently clears of excess babble as you do it. Watering the garden, especially my pots and troughs, from a can can have a similar calming effect for me. I don't like to use a hose, as it's too wasteful and scattered. I just aim a steady stream at the base of the plant and the soil or compost, where it's needed most. Being a rather rash, impulsive and slapdash person by nature this daily carefulness is very good for me, I think. And my soul. And the plants.
Glad your move went well, Annie, and the jam sounds deliciously exotic - no figs in Normandy.
ReplyDeleteI always seem to find lots to do here and am far more active than at any other time of the year. Jam-aking was new last summer, but even without that the garden (such as it is) keeps me busy. I'm having a great time,but still enjoy a bit of blogging :-)
Yep, I love standing at the stove stirring, especially when the end result is raspberry jam to die for :-) Not sure about the active meditation, though - mostly I'm just wondering when I should start to test for set ;-)
ReplyDeleteI don't read much in the daytime nowadays, other than the local French newspaper, and never in the sun or I'd burn. My real reading time is in bed, first thing and at night, when I can read undisturbed.
I like watering too and now have 2 pots and a small border to care for....
Those kittens are beautiful. One of my near neighbours has a barn that is permanently full of them.
ReplyDeleteHi Cro Magnon and thanks for visiting. The kittens are gorgeous and totally unapproachable. The mother is one of the cats from the neighbouring farm and there are always lots of kittens and half-grown cats about, but this is the first litter in our woodshed while we've been here.
ReplyDelete