On My Own Again

For the past couple of years, most of the time I have spent in Preuilly I have been on my own. Susan was working in London and I was working on the house. Then we moved here permanently, and since then it has been Susan and I all the time. Well - this week she is back in the UK working (at Stratford upon Avon) and I am at home.

I have been busy, too - I dropped Susan off at Tours airport on Monday afternoon, and since then I feel like I havent stopped. I have made huge amounts of pasta sauce to freeze and a batch of peach jam. I also tried (unsucessfully) to dry some tomatoes. Ever since Susan washed the numbers off the temperature knob of the oven it has been difficult to know what heat you are using. Whatever heat I was using was too much. In addition I found time to go down to the potager and pick up a couple of wheelbarrow loads of windfalls and put them on the compost heap.

It's a bit sad - a compost heap of apples and peaches.

I also took the opportunity to change the fuel filter on Célestine. This was not as straightforward as I hoped, and at the moment I can't get her started (again). The fuel pump is mechanical and only works when the engine is running, and because I have broken the vacuum in the fuel line I can't get the fuel flowing again. This is peeving, but hopefully it will be a quick fix when I work out what to do. I will be changing the fuel filter fairly often, as the fuel tank has a rust issue I hope will sort itself out after a couple of changes.

Under the bonnet. You can see the
old fuel filter centre left

Alex came over and mowed the potager yesterday afternoon. This really needed doing a couple of weeks ago, but we were waiting until after the rain. Then we were waiting until the sun came again, and luckily today we had a lovely afternoon. While Alex mowed I picked courgettes, tomatoes, peaches, apples, chillies and grapes.

Alex mowing the orchard. After a foggy
start the day turned really nice.

Hopefully that will be the last mow of the year. Next job in the orchard is to prune the cherry trees and pick grapes.

No rest for the wicked...

Simon