The New Guest Bedroom

Today our first guests since we moved here in May arrive. This is a big occasion for us, because not only does it give us an opportunity to trot out out newly refurbished guest bedroom, but we also have our own bedroom, and will soon have a salon.

Our guest bedroom

For the last 17 weeks we have been sleeping, dining and occasionally relaxing in our front ground floor room - what our neighbours refer to as either the salle à manger or le salon. Now we have a staircase we can use our upstairs rooms and spread out a bit. Of course, having guests does have an advantage - Uncle Geoffrey can help us moving wardrobes upstairs, thus clearing the salon for more lounge type furniture.

All of this has meant putting up curtain rods, one of the most annoying and demoralising jobs in the whole history of any sort of home improvement. I mean - who designed this stuff, and why did they make it so fiddly? I am not impressed.

Some of the less instantly nescessary items we own we have stored in the attic, so that one day we can take a stall at a vide grenier and sell all our rubbish in the traditional manner.

Simon

Mystery Stains

I've spent quite a bit of time cleaning wooden floors this last week. I started by washing with half a bucket of warm water with a drop of dishwashing detergent in it, using a well wrung out microfibre mop.

A zinc strip repair, presumably
hiding some merde

Then I discovered Starwax Nettoyant Parquets Stratifiés Vitrifiés. Like all the Starwax products, it's excellent – effective, easy to use and specifically formulated for laminate or wooden floors, varnished or bare, with out being unecessarily abrasive, acidic or caustic like many home maintenance products are (especially the quick fix, no elbow grease required variety). It's still important not to get the floor too wet and not to use more than the recommended quantity of product, even so.

The Mystery Stains, which appear and disappear,
always along the joints

I've just washed, not sanded, at this stage, so we can move into the rooms temporarily, and because the floors are old, there are still some mystery stains. We've worked out what they are, we think, but can you?

Susan

Célestine Comes Home

Well - we're home!!

It was an interesting trip, more of which later. We have just completed a 257km trip in a shade over 4 hours. Célestine behaved impeccably.

And now we will take a short pork chop break... Hungry?? I have redefined the word!!

Simon

A Long Day Ahead

When you read this, we will probably be in Tours, sorting out our driving licences.

That's right - it's time to renew our licences, and as we no longer have a UK address, it's more convenient for us to change over the having a French Licence. This is a big step. We have downloaded and completed the application forms and are hoping all we have to do is arrived at the Prefecture with the forms, some money, and passport photos then not wait TOO long - because we have a train to catch.

The train will take us to Paris Montparnasse, from where we will schlep across town to Gare du Lyon to catch another train to Nemours.

We would like to introduce you to Célestine. She is a Paris built 1953 Citroen Traction Avant 11B who will be living with us for the foreseeable future. Hopefully she will be installed in her new home by 8.00 tonight, but we may stay the night somewhere. Driving at the speed limit it's at least a 4 hour drive home, and the speed limit (90kmh) may be a bit hasty for us on our first trip. Unlike the Renault, which is cruising at 2000rpm for 90kmh, Célestine will be revving quite hard for the same result, and until we are used to her little ways (all ladies of a certain age have little ways) we want to take it easy.

Excited?? Moi??

Simon

Danger de Mort !

What with the dry, the chillies from our potager are thermo-nuclear. Simon has made his annual batch of sweet chilli sauce, and it must be taken in careful doses. A teaspoonful in a little pool on the side of the plate, for tentatively dipping one corner of your forkful of courgette farcie into is quite sufficient.

Simon's recipe normally goes something like this:

Take 10 fresh chillies, finely shredded; a cup of water; a cup of white malt vinegar; 2 cups of white sugar; 10 cloves of garlic, minced; a teaspoon of salt; some ginger, paprika and num pla (oriental fish sauce). Boil until reduced to a consistency you like, then add ¼ cup brown sugar; ¼ cup sherry vinegar; the juice of one or two lemons; and if you have it, a bunch of chopped coriander leaf.

This year because the chillies were so hot he added another ½ cup of white sugar and ½ a cup extra white vinegar, and because we didn't have any coriander, 6 kaffir lime leaves. He then added 3 large tablespoons of plum jam and a shake more salt.
But there are other ways of causing death by over-indulgence, and I reckon my mousse au poire et chocolat could be one. I concocted this recipe to use up the multitude of rather small pears we have on hand.

Quarter, core and peel 10 small pears. Poach for 20 minutes in a syrup made from ¼ cup of red wine and the same of vanilla sugar. Meanwhile, melt a block of chocolate. Blitz the pears and syrup to a purée. Mix 250ml cream* into the chocolate, then mix that into the pear purée. Serve with a sponge finger.

Susan

*I used crême cru (unpasturized cream) but any thick cream would do.

Getting that Preuilly sur Claise Look

People often ask me "Simon - how do I recreate that Preuilly sur Claise look at home*?"

This season, I will be wearing mainly paint. Of course, clothes are important and it pays to be careful in your choice of wardrobe. Shirts should be paint stained, but be wary of wearing a shirt that has paint spatters of just one colour, which shows you have come recently to the world of fashion. Ideally, paint marks on clothing should comprise a range of colours and finishes, from matt undercoat to semi gloss topcoat, with a scattering of high gloss metal paint for the hardened fashionistas.

The lower half should also be clothed.

Shorts are a good idea, as they let the legs and feet to catch paint drips before they reach the floor, allowing the artist to become one with their work. The other option is long trousers you have either grown out of or no longer need in pristine condition because you don't work in an office any more. These should have paint marks in the same range as the shirt. Suit trousers are particularly good for adding a dashing air.

Footwear is important as well, as although the feet should be allowed to breath, footprints on newly cleaned floor are more effective if they have some sort of treadmark. In this photo I am wearing action sandals, but carpet slippers are a just as valid option.

Of course, these days every man about town has his skincare regimen, and we well dressed Prulliaciens are no different. A light dusting of plaster dust makes a good foundation, as it soaks up any perspiration, giving you the perpetual "oh so fresh" look. Highlights in the hair to match the paint you are using (or in extremis, out of the paint you are using) work well.

And of course, the all important matter of odour. Eschew expensive products from the likes of Carlos Beerpaddock or Kevin Small**, and wear White Spirit.

You know it makes sense...

Simon

*I lie.
** names changed to protect the innocent.

Events in and around Preuilly for September 2009

Sunday 5 – La Couture, Bossay-sur-Claise – Concours Labour et Ball-Trap
Ploughing competition and clay pigeon shooting.

Sunday 6 – Boussay – visite commentée de son patrimoine
Guided heritage walk, meet 3.00 pm at the Mairie, 3 hours, free.


Saturday 12 – Cinéma

Friday 18 - Sunday 20th – La Roche Posay – les vacances de Monsieur Haydn – festival de musique de chambre – 5e édition
For the 5th year in a row, the composer Haydn has chosen to holiday in La Roche Posay. There is a Festival of Chamber Music to celebrate.


Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 – Journées du Patrimoine – Société d'Archéologie
Heritage Days (Open House Weekend). The local Museum, in the Poterne, will be open.
28 September – Ligueil – Super Brocante
Fête du Lait, the annual Ligueil festival. We went last year

Market days in Preuilly are Thursdays and Saturdays. The market is held in Place des Halles in the morning.

On Saturday nights there is a pizza van in Place des Halles.

Wildflowers to look out for in September: Squirting Cucumbers (be careful - they sting); ripe blackberries; several species of heather on the forest edges

Wildlife to look out for in September: really big hoverflies like Milesia crabriformis (rather uncommon, looks like a hornet) and big fat beeflies like Villa hottentotta; Convolvulus Hawkmoth (stunning in grey and pink).

Also worth looking out for in September: carpets of cyclamen under the trees in châteaux grounds.

This month, most of the supermarchés have their wine festivals, and the bernache comes in.

Frites de la bois

You read that right - not fruits.

One of the bonuses of driving along the Routes Nationaux and Departmentales (apart from the self imposed diversions) are the eating places.

Whereas on the Autoroutes you get the roadhouse/service station standard fare, on the smaller roads you get a wide and varied choice - every option in fact, because because the roads often pass through towns, villages and hamlets.

There are other places to eat, and these are usually announced by a piece of cardboard/wood by the side of the road with the word "frites" handwritten on it. They are one man operations in a caravan, sometimes in an aire de repose (rest area) sometimes in a layby (or parking) right by the side of the road, or like this one, down a side track in the forest.

We stopped here on our way back from Nemours a couple of weeks ago. It was hot and we were in need of an icecream and it seemed the perfect place - shaded by big trees, and just far enough away from the road for the noise to be slightly muted. I had seen the "frites" sign the previous time we had been to Nemours, and remember seeing the caravan.

Why do the signs always seem to say "frites"? We have no idea why frites is the foodstuff by which the places first announce themselves, because they do slightly more complicated food as well - even pizza (probably from frozen), steack haché (ditto) and hamburgers.

For our first experience of this sort of dining we had just a drink and an ice cream. Next time we may be more adventurous.

Simon

Mes Noisettes ne sont pas bonne !

My nuts are no good !

I've just started harvesting the billions of hazelnuts we have on our 6 noisetiers. On my way back from the orchard with a bucketful, I ran into one of our neighbours. She picked over the top layer of my hazels and pronounced virtually all of them pas bonne.

A box of noisettes (hazelnuts)

I asked her how I could tell which were good. Sometimes it's perfectly obvious - if they have a petit trou, then they've been weevilled and there won't be a useable nut inside. Mostly though I have no idea how she could tell. She was right every time we cracked one to see whether there was a nut inside or not, but the good shells look exactly like the bad ones. We discussed it a bit, but it seems she just knows and I will just have to learn by experience.

She tells me that it's been a bad year for hazels all over France. Her brother, who lives further north, has had the same problem, with many nuts being empty of kernels.

Apparently I must leave them to dry out for some weeks before tackling the task of cracking them. It's time consuming and surprisingly hard work, so if the resulting nut count is meagre it will be depressing.

Some of the pears.
A mixture of Williams and Beurre Hardy.

I've also picked almost all of the pears. It was that or lose them to a woodpecker (I think) who ruins them by pecking into and eating about a quarter of a pear, knocking them to the ground in the process. Every day for the past week or so I've found three or four pears in this state.

Susan

The Gateway to Arcadia

There is a pretty little village, off the beaten track for us, called Monthoiron. We only go there on our way to Brico-Depot in Dissay, but one day we should really take our time and visit properly.

L'eglise Saint-Ambroise à Monthoiron

It bills itself as le Portail à l'Acadie poitevine. There are many places in the nearby département of Vienne, between us and Poitiers which have strong connections to the early French settlements in North America. The US state of Maine and the Atlantic coast of Canada (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia) were once Acadie and many of the farmers who lived there came from around the little towns and villages in the central west of France like Pleumartin, Archigny and Monthoiron. In the 17th century, England and France jostled for control of Acadie. Many Acadiens fled – some south to Louisana, where they became the Cajuns, some back to the districts in France that their families came from. It is a sad and romantic story which has captured the imagination of songwriters and historians. A good outline of the story and its background can be read on Wikipedia (in English).

Inside the church, looking up to the gallery.

Even without this interesting historical connection to feed the imagination, Monthoiron is a particularly attractive village, set overlooking the lush prairie land of the Clain River valley. The church, on the market square, is absolutely fascinating, with some unusually good polychrome statuary and a sloping gallery which we think may be unique – we've certainly never seen anything quite like it before. There is an array of benches that you have to climb over to get a seat in any but the middle row. Did only the men sit up here in times gone by when women wore cumbersome skirts and weren't supposed to show an ankle?

From the gallery looking down into
the apse at the other end

The excellent leaflet (in French) available at the entrance to the church explains that during the Wars of Religion in the 16th century, the nave of the church was destroyed and never subsequently rebuilt. Due to the disappearance of the nave, one enters the church directly at the transept and immediately beneath the bell tower, with its massive pillars. The considerable height of the tower is obscured by the gallery built in the 19th century to overcome the lack of space.

The stairs to the gallery

Susan

Food, Glorious Food

The freezer arrived yesterday, so after letting it settle in we turned it on and loaded it with the fruit we have processed since taking over the potager/verger. All you can see in the following photo is fruit based (if you're being a pedant and calling tomatoes a fruit, which they are), or fruit and veg based (if you're normal). Somewhere in there are 10 dinners worth of Pasta sauce for two people, the rest is cherries, nectarines and plum based produce.

And talking of produce, this is what we picked yesterday:


Plums, pears, apples, nashi and tomatoes you can see easily. Below them are haricots verts, lettuce, chillies, aubergine, courgette, cornichon, hazelnuts and nectarines. When we got home I picked another 6 or 7 largish tomatoes from the front garden.

If we aren't careful we are in danger of eating healthily.

Simon

Business Names

Mangling language is not just one way traffic. For every occasion where I may have told someone that I am an aspidistra, or Susan tells someone she loves him (rather than his work) , the French manage to amuse us with their choice of words.

When you start a business, the business name is all important. It tells the world what you do and how you approach the job. In the UK, the most notorious businesses for punning shop names are Hairdressers - and in France things aren't that much different.

We would love to know, however, what message the following businesses thought they were giving:




Simon

Curled Rose Sawfly - Tenthrèdes du rosier

Yesterday morning when I went out to the boulangerie I noticed some cute little caterpillars, curled up asleep after a hard night's chomping on one of my rose bushes. I haven't encountered this species before, but a little research on the net tells me they are probably Curled Rose Sawfly Allantus cinctus (Tenthrèdes du rosier) larvae, which means they are not caterpillars at all, but fausse-chenilles.

The 'false caterpillars' will transform into sawflies, a group of stingless flying insects related to wasps. Many sawflies are serious horticultural pests, and a colony of larvae can consume the host plant in days. My rose seems to only have three individuals, so for the time being they can stay and take their chances on being snapped up by a bird with a late brood of hungry youngsters.

Susan

PS The freezer did not arrive yesterday. We got a phone call to say that, malheureusement, it was not possible to make the delivery yesterday, and it would now be Thursday.

Things to remind myself next time I paint:

If sanding an old piece of wood, don't try to get all the paint off.
Really - it doesnt matter. Those shutters have seen many years of service and are proud of their battle scars. A patch or two of old paint underneath 4 coats of new stuff will make no difference.

Do remember to sand back between coats
Remind yourself you're not sanding the latest coat of paint off, just scratching the surface so the new paint can take hold.

Remember to dilute the paint.
When putting on the first coat of colour, put the paint in a container and add a splash of dilutant. It goes a lot further and is easier to use.

Don't keep sticking your hair in the paint.
It doesnt help. Even if you're leaning back to look at your work, rubbing your hair in the last bit you painted really doesn't help.

Paint towards yourself.
Remember the last time - and the time before that - when you painted window frames? You kept on grabbing the piece you had just painted so you could lean further out.

Don't get hung up on the odd brushmark.
The neighbours won't be climbing a ladder just to check how neat you are. Honest they won't

Don't put the lid of the tin on the floor.
Remember last time you trod on it? It wasn't fun then, either.

One day all our windows will
look like this

Change brushes occasionally
There are no prizes for who can lift the heaviest paintbrush. You ALWAYS put too much paint on the brush, and it always gains weight as you go.

Look at the clock
Don't start work too early - the paint wont spread. Don't paint in the full sun, either - the paint will go all tacky before you can get the next brushload on.

Look at the clock.
Don't keep "just" touching it to see if it's dry yet. It isn't.

Look at the clock.
It's probably time for a beer.

Simon

Plums

We have 3 plum trees and 4 Nectarine trees in the verger.

The fruit on two of the nectarine trees ripened quite early - about 4 weeks ago. The fruit was large, extra tasty and extra sweet, but the small tree in the potager doubly so. We can't comment on the other trees; the big tree (which we commented on here) has suffered badly in the drought, and most of its fruit have stopped developing at the "hard as bullets" stage and gone on to the "shrivelled and falling off" stage. There are some fruit worth picking, and they're not bad at all. The last of the nectarine trees has only 3 fruit and is suffering likewise.

The plum trees have been a revelation - the yellow plums are Ste Catherine and never looked like ripening until the day, all of a sudden, when they were begging to be picked. They are quite small, and incredibly sweet and juicy, if not particularly tasty. The others are "prunier abrico rouge", a very large plum with red/purple skin and bright yellow flesh, and they are super tasty.

Ste Catherine plums

The abrico rouge is a large tree, and so far we have half picked it, and picked up the windfalls. On Saturday evening we decided to give the Ste Catherine a shake, and all of its fruit fell off. This is a lot easier than climbing a ladder! Once we have processed all of them (there's only about 4kg or so) and our freezer arrives (hopefully tomorrow!!) we will give the abrico rouge a shake.

Prune abrico rouge

We went to the orchard this morning to give the tree a shake, even though it started raining (I will dignify the 8 drops of rain so far with that term in the hope it provokes a response). There weren't as many plum left as we thought, but at least we have taken all the plums of our trees.

Simon

ps 2-1 eh... whooda thunk it

Return to Nemours

After the disappointment the last time we went to Nemours, we received an email from the garage we visited, apologising for the typo in their original email. We arranged to visit last Monday, ringing them up just to confirm they would be open.

Because we had other business to do the same day we made an early start of it, and because this time we were not quite so precious about avoiding toll roads it meant the complete round trip took us 12 hours. The route is quite a good one, going through some pretty towns and crossing some of the big rivers, including the Loire. All up we spent 12 euros on tolls, and saved ourselves about an hour driving

Nemours is a really pretty town, we assume fashionably close to Paris and in the Paris transport system, but without the Paris prices in the restaurants. We had a really pleasant lunch - steak and dessert - for 12 euros each, sitting outside a restaurant across from the church.

Where we had lunch

There are some beautiful buildings in Nemours, and none is more attractive that the chateau. It looks like a fortified manor house should look - massive walls, but of quite moderate proportions. Some people may fantasise about living in a chateau like Chenonceaux, but if I had to live in a chateau this is the kind I would choose.

The Chateau from across the river Loing

There are a lot of parks and gardens in Nemours, and plenty of other open spaces like riverside and canalside walks. One of the riverbanks has metal sun loungers, a kiosk and an interesting children's playground. There are also a lot of dog toilet areas, but it appears the dogs in Nemours don't do readin'.

Looking towards the chateau across the church garden.

It looks like the municipal gardeners are hyperactive, because there are hanging baskets and planters everywhere, all in magnificent condition, and putting on a colourful show even though the last rain was 2 weeks ago. I am glad we aren't paying the water bill!

The church and just a few flowers.

If you're in the area I think it is well worth a visit: Nemours has all those things you look for in a small French town - a chateau, and interesting church, good views, good restaurants, plenty of free parking and some interesting shops. It would be best not to visit on a Monday, because the chateau is closed.

Simon

A French Potager

A potager in Preuilly is not self-consciously designed to be a decorative garden with some vegetable produce as an almost incidental bonus. A potager is simply a vegetable garden, but for all that they have a certain style. Plants are laid out in neatly tended rows. Flowers and fruit are almost always included, and the whole effect is pleasing to the eye, and a reflection of the diligent attention they get. They always give the impression the owner is feeding a family of about 20 with the quantity that is planted, but I think many people put in enough so that if they have some failures it's not a disaster, and everyone is very generous with offering their produce if they have surplus. At the moment, we are offering plums to everyone. The other day in return for some plums and beans I received about 20 little strawberry plants. No one can give away their zucchini (courgettes) though, as everyone has surplus, even with this dry weather.

Yesterday morning I went down and photographed our neighbour Monsieur Q's potager, which is an exemplar of the working French vegetable plot. Monsieur Q often stops for a chat on his way past our house, and he inspects our potted tomatoes and peppers in the courtyard and tells me about the progress of his tomatoes. He's had several this year that have been just under a kilo! And he tells me he has not fertilized at all. (Naturally, he is not the slightest bit interested in the merely ornamental plants that make up the bulk of the garden in the courtyard, except to tell me that the Contorted Hazel looks diseased.)

Monsieur Q's zucchini are clearly getting out of hand

The French eat vast quantities of lettuce of many varieties. Whenever you are offered lettuce from a French person's garden, expect to receive at least two, as they assume you will eat that much lettuce within a couple of days.

Cos lettuce, which copes better with the heat I think,
and tomatoes.

There certainly are some fairly hefty tomatoes (about 15 cm - 6 inches across) in Monsieur Q's garden, at least two different varieties. Note the powdery blue blotches of Bordeaux mixture (copper sulphate) in the picture below, used as a general fungicide, and in tomatoes used especially to try to control blight (Australians who have never encountered the blights that affect the solanum family of vegetables, think Irish potato famine for an idea of how devasting it can be). Always wash tomatoes before you prepare them in the kitchen in France, because they will almost always be treated with a fungicide.

I also noticed eggshells on the tops of canes amongst the carrots. I had assumed this was protection against being stabbed in the eye when you bent over the carrots, but I don't know why only the carrots have eggshelled canes, or indeed, why there are canes in the carrot rows at all. It seems unlikely that it is a deterrent for carrot fly.



Susan

Icecream – les Glaces

Icecream is a favourite summer dessert in France, but even so, the French can't compete with the consumption levels of some other countries. More icecream is consumed in northern Europe than around the Mediterranean (with the exception of Italy). The biggest consumers in Europe are the Finns, at 13.3 litres per person per year. The biggest consumers in the world are the Americans, getting through an average of 0.5 litres per week per person. France comes in at 6 litres per person per year. France's very moderate performance in the icecream consumption stakes must be because two modestly sized scoops are considered a serving here, and icecream is a summer treat. Anyone seen eating icecream in the winter in France is clearly a tourist.

As well as the industrially produced icecream available in the supermarkets, there are many small companies and individuals making glaces artisanales. The main difference between an industrial product and an artisan product comes with the quality of the raw materials. An artisanal icecream is made from fresh whole milk, organic eggs and local fruit picked at optimal maturity. Another difference is in the way they are made, especially in the amount of air incorporated into the mix. Industrial icecreams have a lot of air in order to add volume.

Front, glace à la vanille and sorbet à la framboise.
Back, nougat glacé.*

In France there are three basic sorts of icecream, the definitions of which are set by law:

• Glace – contains water, milk proteins and fats.
• Sorbet – a mixture of water, sugar and at least 25% fruit.
• Crème glacée – made from milk, crème fraîche (cultured fresh cream) and sugar.

A scoop of icecream is called a boule in French (think pétanque), not to be confused with the bowl it comes in, which is a coupe. French icecreams do not have flavours, they have parfums. One of the nicest things about icecream in France is that if you opt to have it in a cone, the cone will be one of those crisp crunchy wafer cones, not a nasty piece of moulded cardboard (or whatever completely unispiring substance those icecream cones are made of).

The most famous glacier - sorbetière in France is Berthillon, based on the Ile de Saint Louis in Paris, but there are many other excellent artisan producers. David Lebovitz has a useful list of the Paris based ones here.

Susan

*Photograph taken at l'Image in Preuilly. Les glaces are the one thing on the menu that is not made in house here, which is perhaps a measure of how specialised a skill it is seen to be. Note that it is not seen as necessary to bulk the dish up with disgusting squirty cream or cheap syrupy topping.

A Roman Theatre

Between Montargis and Châtillon-Coligny there is a really impressive Roman theatre (I have marked it here). We drove past in on one of our expeditions looking at cars.

Every time we go out in the car we see signs pointing to really interesting things we never knew existed. In a way, this is a bonus: we wouldn't travel 300km just to see this Roman amphitheatre, but having it appear out of the blue provides an opportunity to stop the car and have a little walk. If it isn't Roman remains or an abbey it's a prehistoric monument or interesting and unusual church.

There is nothing about this amphitheatre on the internet,
besides it being on lists of Roman Theatres. There is some
information on notice boards besides the (locked) gate

We never know quite what we are going to stumble upon, but we are always ready to dive down a side road or head up a grassy track just in case there is something remarkable at the end.

Simon

Looking out over Preuilly

We have been talking about how dry it is: yesterday we went to our favorite lookout point and took some photos for our new banner. Add the dryness to the fact all the crops are now off, and you can really see a difference:

19 August 2009

19 June 2009
2009 has not only been the hottest summer since we have owned the house in Preuilly, it has been by far and away the driest, too. Today once again it was over 30°C, and once again it is thought it might rain the day after tomorrow. This has been the forecast for the last two weeks - dry and hot tomorrow, rain the day after. They've been right about tomorrow - but the day after tomorrow never comes and we just get tomorrow again. Today and tomorrow the forecast is for 34°, Friday's forecast is for cooler with a chance of rain.

This means we are still carrying water down to the garden. Of course, we can never carry enough water to the garden to water properly, but we are amazed that the plants are hanging on in there, even if they aren't growing. The leeks are looking as if they might last, but at some stage we will have to water them even though so far we have managed to avoid it. The beans are having a hiatus, but have lots of little pods - we assume waiting for the rain before they overwhelm us. We hope so anyway, though at the moment the overwhelming is being done by plums and we have nowhere to store them: the freezer is full, the fridge is full, and the second small bar fridge is full as well.

We have had a freeezer on order since the end of last month and are expecting it sometime this week - or maybe next week. This will really allow us to make the most of our produce, and also to take advantage of any specials and bulk buys at the market and supermarkets. We debated if buying and running a freezer is economically worthwhile, but freezers have come a long way since we last had one, and the new freezer will use less than one unit of electricity a day making for an increase in the electricity bill of about 25€ a year. If we can make the most of our garden produce we should get a net saving in money terms - and a net increase in our confidence in the freshness and quality of the food we are eating.

Simon