The Wonder of Nature

Being in France one got used to all sorts of creatures running around in the garden (and the house of some occasions) from very large Toads to Lizards and Snakes plus the occasional Wild Boar and Bull (from the next field, who liked grazing in our orchard rather than their own field). I have some wonderful stories about one particular Bull which I named Daisy (I know the name doesnt suit) I'll cover this soon.

Nothing, but nothing beats looking out into our garden here and watching the birds, we have set up quite a few different feeding stations containing fat balls, seed, peanuts, etc and to watch the tiny sparrows and tits leave the hedge and flit onto the nuts, the slightest movement and they disappear back into the privet hedge again, after a few seconds, out pops all these tiny heads, glancing in every direction until they think its safe again to fly out. Its a complete joy to watch them and always brings a smile to my face. Hopefully once we have been here longer they will accept us and not be so cautious. We have noticed our Robins have been not so quick to fly away at the slightest movement.

Of course I haven’t mentioned our Cats and Dog that travelled to France with us and back again, at a total cost for the return trip only of over a thousand pounds, but I shall cover that topic soon – however, I need a very good day to mention such sad events.

Can you identify the plant

Having been disappointed with the way that Spurs played, decided not to mention anymore about the game. So I wont.

Awoke yesterday morning to an overcast day, we decided to work on the garden again, there is much to do this time of year with the one hectare of land. It is very warm and with no sunshine or wind made it difficult to get on with any motivation, but we plodded on and most of the landscaped garden is now finished, we also have one of the vegetable plots ready for planting. Just need to deal with the grape vines, which we have three, and that side of the garden is looking good.

Stayed in last evening and watched some television, something we do not normally do, but we both enjoy the new programme Joseph, and last night was no exception, thoroughly enjoyed watching the talent, it is just a shame that we cannot vote from here in France.

This morning it’s quite misty and the forecast is hot, so we shall persevere with an area at the rear of the garden that needs clearing. There is a pretty ground cover plant that has sprung up amongst the weeds, it has small white flowers, and I cannot quite remember the name, although I know it’s a very popular alpine in England. I have searched the internet, but with no luck, perhaps someone please can remind me of the name as it appears to be really bothering me, as you will notice the earth here is already very dry.

Just another day

Today is a beautiful day here in France, the sun is shining and its warm, the sky is clear blue and it finally feels like Summer is on the way after a long, dark, wet Winter. Another afternoon in the garden and we will feel we are making progress with the borders and flower beds. The trees are covered in blossom, and the shrubs are certainly well on their way. The Peonies are in bud ready to burst into their beautiful colours of various reds and pinks.

Life at the moment for us both due to trying to sell and return to England is generally very boring, particularly around this time of year when it is so quiet. We will be pleased when May arrives and the French General Election is over and things in France have settled down, hopefully the house market will then pick up, and we will have some interesting news to report.

The animals are booked into the Vets tomorrow for their blood tests for Rabies after their booster 10 days ago. We are quite confident they cannot have this disease as they were vaccinated in England before we arrived, but Defra says this is required before we can return them to the U.K. so its something we have to pay out for and do. The cost for this test works out at 450 Euros for the five of them. Certainly not cheap to have pets nowadays.

Our Poppy, a blue/cream Persian we are quite worried about, she is now nearly 17 years old, and looks the worst for wear, we are sure she is deaf, and sometimes she gets quite confused as to where she is and where she wants to go. The Vet did a blood test on her last time we went to check her organs etc. and said she was fine, heart was good and kidneys were ok. So we shall plod with her and hope she makes it through the six month period and the journey.

Just a quiet day

Since my mentioning yesterday about the African Hoopoe in our garden, we saw three together this morning pecking with their long beaks. So managed to capture all three of them with my camera, can you spot them? They seem to like the insects in the newly cut lawn. We have been working on the garden the last couple of days as good weather has finally arrived again so perhaps this has encouraged them to stay.

This morning however, we both woke up with backaches, due to the long afternoon of weeding yesterday, so we will not be doing much out there today. It may be a good time to sit and watch the world go by for the afternoon.

We always thought when we got to France we would be sitting out in the garden with a glass of French wine in the afternoon, soaking up the sun, but I don’t think alcohol in the afternoon has ever passed our lips.

Easter weekend without the family around, doesn’t seem to mean much to us here in France, its times like this that we miss England and the family. What with the house market being very quiet due to the elections here, we think it will be quite a time before we can return to England. However, we are trying to make the most of the space here, as once we do return we will not have such a large garden with these outstanding views of the countryside.

The other thing I am sure we will miss are all the animals around us, the field at the back has all the cows in, all tagged in their ears ready for the market. The retired farmer opposite has all the Sheep, and the Chickens, although we have noticed the Cockerel never crows early in the morning, only early evening do we ever hear him and it never bothers us.

African Hoopoe

We woke this morning with the sun shining bright, although it’s still quite cold here. Spotted an unusual bird on the lawn so reached for my camera and through the window managed to get a photograph, its not a very good one, but shows some of the detail of this beautiful creature.

Apparently its an African Hoopoe (Upupa Africana) which I presume most Europeans know, however, never ever have we seen one in England so feel sure they haven’t crossed the channel. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who knows different.

We do not generally encourage birds into the garden due to having the four cats which are often on the prowl, but that doesn’t seem to deter the birds from visiting us, and some are so unusual and different. I will, in the future have to take more of an active interest in capturing these on my camera as there are so many we do not recognise, and they are so attractive.

Feeling Sluggish

Living here in France we have come across some weird looking creatures, we kind of got used to the occasional snake, masses of shy lizards, mating hedgehogs, screaming owls, hornets, extra large tame flies, huge toads, to name just a few. Not sure we could ever get used to the Spotted Leopard Slug, (had to research this one as just had not got a clue to what type of slug it was), however, latin name I think is Limax Maximus so its been around a lot time!

Came across some interesting facts about these creatures:
Their eyes are at the tips of short stalks arising below the base of much longer, more slender tentacles. The tentacles feel what the simple eyes may not see.
Their mouths are directed downward, so that food can be taken from the surface as they travel across it.
They have single, muscular, broad flat-bottomed feet which moves the creature forward.

Understand somewhere there is actually an “International Slug Fest”, a contest to locate and photograph the largest slug in the world, however, did not have a ruler to hand when I wanted to snap photos of these, but they sure grow them big here in this country.

Gravelling around the property

It took from Spring onwards last year to get the garden in some sort of shape and after spending the end of the Summer having 26 tons of gravel delivered, many an hour transferring this to the drive, parking areas and paths we felt that the garden was just about finished. (So were we).

When we went to the local gravel pits, we were presented with dozens of little plastic containers showing us all the different sizes and colours of gravel, and we were surprised at the quantity that we needed to do the job. We were even more surprised when this huge dumper (camion) arrived and tipped it out, we nearly fell over once the mountain of gravel that completely blocked the entrance to our drive.

It has been a long, cold, wet and windy Winter, but it feels now that Spring is on its way. It’s brighter and the garden is drying out from all the rain we have had. We felt it was time to mow the lawn and orchard and start to get rid of the weeds.

Of course, being in France, it is not permitted to use any form of mechanical equipment outside during the hours of 12 and 2pm and all day on Sunday, although some tend to ignore this, we being English feel we should follow the rules. So Sunday came and went without us getting out the mower etc. and it was such a beautiful day.

Monday came and it was all hands to the deck, grass 3ft high and our sit on mower struggling to cope. It took all of Monday and Tuesday to get a quick cut all round. We just started on Wednesday to tidy up and the heavens opened. One thing about living here is that we do seem to get more than our fair share of rain, locals say this is climate change in the region, and they have never know such rainy conditions.

At least the garden now is on the way to looking good.