Back in France at last - plus the latest folly

 We've been back in France now about ten days, and so far the weather has been kind for November. We've had rain, but not for long, and there was one very cold evening and night, but we've also had brisk breezes and bright sunshine, and the trees have been resplendent with colour. Here are some of ours, big and small, before the cold and the wind stripped them bare.

Liriodendron tulipifera - gloriously golden leaves bigger than my hand, with their odd geometric shape.

The copper beech

Magnolia 'Yellow River'

Sadly we were too late to see the resplendent autumn colour of the Claret Ash, but Rosie thought she would pose in the drift of leaves all around its trunk!

We thought it was too wet for much garden work, but I managed to cut back and weed and clear enough for two trips to the dump. And then the mower came out after all - but stopped in its tracks when the petrol ran out!

Here's a lovely drive up to a chateau where we walked the dog.

I took some photos of inside the house, since nearly everything I post is of the garden. Our lounge rarely looks this tidy, but we were expecting guests!

As if an ancient pile in France were not enough, we have recently acquired  a motorhome (that's the folly.) The thinking was, 'If we leave it till we no longer have our home in France, we'll be too doddery to go anywhere.' 

Here she is: a venerable lady 20 years old.

Our first (and so far only) night away, just to get acquainted.

Rosie thought it might be amusing to explore the bathroom.

It was very cold that night, and we weren't especially well-prepared, so we were awake for a cup of tea at 6 a.m.!

What next? We hope to explore other parts of France using our house here as a base. A friend has alerted us to a man-made lake, miles away to the east, where thousands of cranes flock in the autumn. Maybe that's something to aim for next year!

New website address

 As of today, my website is at www.slrussell.org. Why not have a look?

Towering vegetation

 After the experience of 2020 when we were away from our French house (reluctantly) for five months, arriving to a bewildering amount of garden clearance, in 2021 we found a man to cut the grass every fortnight from March until we were able to do it ourselves. This time the period of enforced absence was longer still - nine months. We arrived in August and stayed a month, and  even though the grass had been seen to there was still a huge backlog to tackle. Looming large, both in fact and in our minds, were our hedges. There are two of them - one runs the width of the back garden, the other forms one border of the potager, and both have their other side in our neighbour's property.

This neighbour is new to the place, and we don't know him. Our impression is that he has no wish to know us, unlike the previous people who were happy to chat when we coincided and were generous with their surplus produce. Our unpopularity may be something to do with the number of bonfires we lit when trying to clear the contents of the fallen boulangerie. As a result the far side of both hedges, always inaccessible by us, were still out of reach, because the hedges are about eight feet deep!  A few years ago a doughty visiting family member who happens to be very tall found an old door which he put on top of the hedge and then sat on it and wielded the chainsaw and hedge trimmer -  but even he couldn't reach the far side. So the hedges were a problem, and one we couldn't solve by ourselves. As has sometimes happened in the past, we consulted our long-term French neighbours who live half a mile down the lane. They are very helpful and know everybody. True to form they suggested we seek the help of someone they knew, who lived very close and who would welcome extra money. It was confusing as both these gentlemen had the same name and we had to refer to them as J1 and J2! After inspection and polite negotiation along came J2 and worked extremely hard over three days to take our hedges down to a manageable height so that once again we could deal with them ourselves. As a bonus he knew our neighbour and obtained permission to cut from his side. How, we wondered, would he get up there to do the job?

He brought his elderly tractor round to our back garden, and attached to its front forks three or four pallets which acted as a platform. He then scaled a ladder propped against the side and proceeded to wield his chainsaw with alarming insouciance. When I suggested it looked dangerous he waved away my cautious British objections with a very Gallic shrug, and it wasn't until after the job was completed that I asked myself who would have been liable if he'd had an accident. Happily, for him, for us, and for his two young children who found our garden a great place for riding their bikes, he didn't.

The finished hedges looked trim as never before.

Of course his efforts resulted in piles of clippings. Disposing of unwanted vegetation involves for us bootloads of stuff and many trips to the local dump. But here our wonderful neighbour - J1 - came to the rescue. With considerable skill he trundled down our drive in his tractor, turned it round and attached a large and antique-looking trailer. I commented, 'J, I think you have done this before,' and he just grinned.

With a few webbing straps in place, the swaying heap was taken away. We had no idea what they did with it - I suspect farmers have pits they burn stuff in - and we didn't much care. For the first time in years the hedges were down and a weight lifted from us. Not only that, but in J2 we may have found someone we can call on in the future.

Amazingly, very little was spilled!

A welcome review!

 My latest novel, published this year, has garnered a very welcome 5* review from Readers' Favorite today!

 The old bakery: part two

After nine months of restrictions on travel - no doubt necessary, but all the same frustrating - we have made it back to France. The grass was trimmed, but everywhere else was a  jungle. The work is ongoing, but my priority was to clear the new building and its surroundings, including the path, which was almost invisible under all the rampant growth. To be reminded of the mess that it was, scroll down to a post dated February this year. Here's what it looked like when we first arrived: crowded in by grass and weeds, and the path almost invisible!

Here's what it looks like now: not only weed free (more or less, and of course not for long!) but also beautified by flowers and solar lights. And also the view up the lower drive, strimmed and mowed.

The weeded path (needing constant vigilance!) 

One of two fabulous 'Vanille Fraise' hydrangeas, undaunted by so many months of neglect.

A plus from a pandemic

 I count myself blessed to have four step-grandchildren, ranging in age from 11 to 6, two boys and two girls. Until recently, because of Covid restrictions, I hadn't seen them for a long time, but it is difficult to see them anyway as they all live many miles away and have working parents and busy lives. At the beginning of the first UK lockdown in March 2020 children were away from school and learning at home, and one of my stepdaughters suggested that the children and I had an online video session from time to time so that the children could read to me. It was a great way of keeping in touch. The six year old soon ran out of books and had other fish to fry, but his 8 year old sister, a keen reader, kept up the contact even after she went back to school, and it is (certainly for me, and I hope also for her) a really lovely way to keep connected. So far she has read a favourite book to me, and I have read three of the Chronicles of Narnia to her. Now we have started on another book of hers, but the reading is interspersed with chat about all manner of things. Even allowing for bias, she is a bright, articulate child, interested in everything, and often wise beyond her years. Recently it came out that part of her school homework was to write the blurb for a book she had been reading, and as I have some experience in this I offered to help. We duly composed, between us, a succinct and tantalising script, and she announced triumphantly, ' I will tell my teacher that I had help from a relative who's an author!' (I quote verbatim.) As many an author will tell you, publicity and marketing is the toughest part of writing a book, but maybe now, thanks to this delightful youngster, the word is out!

A new book!

 

My new book will be published on May 21, 2021. It's available in all the usual places: Amazon, bookshops, other online outlets. For anyone who has read my previous novel The Healing Knife, this one is a kind of follow-on. While the story is quite different there are some characters who reappear. I write about things that interest me, and the law is one of those things. In a nation such as mine, we take its operation for granted - but should we?

The old bakery, risen from ruin

 Once more in lockdown, we have had to rely on photos sent by our builder, and these were received with great interest as you might imagine. The work was eventually started in early January, and took five weeks rather than the original estimate of two; but as we weren't there, no doubt the weather was a factor and other jobs may well have been done at the same time.

Here's a reminder of what it looked like to start with:

 

The site cleared, and the resulting sea of mud! (It was winter, after all.)

The slabs are laid and the path gravelled.

The path as it leads down to the house.

Here the wall has been pointed but it had started to rain and the capping had not yet  been done, so the men doing the pointing insisted that the tarpaulin stayed in place.

I have photos of the finished project, complete with capped wall, but for some reason they have declined to upload. So the end of the story will have to wait until we can ourselves go to France and see with our own eyes. At the moment travel is forbidden, but things are opening up, and we live in hope of spending the summer there. Meanwhile we have found a local man to cut our grass so we don't arrive to a jungle as we did last year; and he has agreed to put some grass seed on the sea of mud. We wait - with varying degrees of patience!