Lalandi pines ... before and after

 

We got a team of tree-fellers in to cut down a patch of 80 year old Lalandi pines obscuring the view of the valley.

It's made the world of difference.

the lower patch of Lalandi

the upper patch of Lalandi

the lower patch after tree felling

the upper patch after tree felling

The change has opened up the vista and created a whole new feel for Ellesmere's garden.

It's let light and air through to our other trees and given us a true sense of being on a hilltop.

The early morning sun now comes streaming in, bathing the south side of the house.

my raised-bed potager 

We plan to engage the same team next year to fell the remaining Lalandi on the eastern side of the house.

The open doors of Spring

 

It was an "open-door" weekend in our neck of the woods, between Bazens, in the Lot et Garonne, and Nerac, just inside Gers.

Farms and wineries welcomed visitors. Many establishments put on special events and some had catering.

With our Galapian friends Richard and David ... and Shelley from Port Saint Marie, we took off in her roomy station wagon to do a bit of a winery crawl ... and have a picnic lunch.

We were hoping to book a restaurant, but that turned out to be impossible due to the fact it was French Mothers' Day.

Our first winery visit was not far from Bazens, at Domaine de Courege Longue, a small establishment on the fertile Garonne flood plain near the village of Feugarolles.

The owners were very friendly and received us with genuine warmth. Shelley and the men bought a case each but Cliona and I restricted ourselves to just one bottle, their top of the range red. At 25 euros a bottle, that was enough!

We drove to the nearby village of Lavardac, on the Canal de Garonne, and found a shaded table overlooking the water.

We each contributed to the lunch. Richard and David brought a Quiche Lorraine and potato salad, and cheeses. Shelley brought a mussel and samphire dish and a strawberry cake. We brought a baked Camembert and a dish called Coronation Chicken. 

After lunch we went to another winery, Chateau Pierron. 

It was situated at the end of a beautiful, tree-lined drive.

There was a food stall of Reunion delicacies. Two women, dressed in traditional Reunion costume, danced with gay abandon outside the cellar door. The rosé was flowing freely!

Our host showed us around the winery ... and into the cool, aromatic dungeon that housed barrels of wine and Armagnac.

Had we not been satiated by our picnic treats we may have been tempted by the Reunion delicacies on offer.

Our next stop was Chateau de la Grangerie, near the village of Lannes, a winery well-known in a region of Armagnac producers.

A lovely painting of the Chateau and a bottle of "clear" Armagnac 

The good drop on offer

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day, with beautiful weather, great food and wine, and typical French hospitality.

We look forward to doing this again next year.

VW ... times change

 

My parents brought me home, a new-born baby, in the well of our 1955 VW Beetle.

The well is the space between the back seat and the sloping back window ...

a narrow, oval-shaped back window.

Viv

In 1957 the car went to my aunt, and forty-five years later, it came back to me via her will.

My 1955 oval-window Beetle, which I named Viv after my dear aunt, was as basic as you could get.

It didn't have indicators. It had semaphores that popped out when you wanted to turn.  It didn't even have a petrol guage.

But now I own another VW.

How times have changed.

The all-electric ID3 is the most sophisticated car I've ever owned. It practically drives itself.

I should call it Viv Mark 2.

The Doors

When we moved in at Ellesmere, both upstairs bedrooms had non-descript, cream-coloured doors.

They needed to be changed to a more traditional, farm-house style of door.

I made Viv's bedroom door from an old, restored barn shutter. I used the hardware (hinges and handles) from the previous door and attached three lovely iron strip-hinges as decoration.

With our bedroom, I constructed the door out of boards of Douglas Fir and used the existing hardware. I added, as with Viv's door, iron strip-hinges which I had removed from a barn shutter and cleaned. 

An inside view ...

I'm really happy that the upstairs doors are now like all the other doors and reflect the character of the house.

Brrr ... the cold

 

In the warming room that boasts a Bullerjan, I can just make out a glowing fire way back inside its fat, black barrel bristling with metal tubes, like exhaust pipes on a Spitfire. 

Past the candle lights and through the window, double-glazed against the cold, lead-grey afternoon, stands the leafless skeleton of a sprawling lime, whose branches start thick near the trunk but grow ever thinner, as they divide and divide again, to end like capillaries, like a satellite image of Coopers Creek. Or so it seems.

And away to the horizon, the snow-covered Pyrenees, majestic, ethereal, like a Bob Ross painting.

 

I love to take shelter from the bitter cold. Having grown up in Queensland, the European winter is still a bit of a novelty. I can't wait for snow, which is predicted for next week.

A Covid Christmas

It should have been a shared event, but instead it was a quiet celebration for two, just like our first Christmas in France four years ago.

Our friends from the UK did not come, it was their third cancellation in nine months.

So, as the grey sky blew away, revealing a weak winter sun, then greyed over again, our two reindeer stood stoically by the 19th century amphora outside the front door.

Behind them, a riot of yellowing mulberry leaves lay strewn on the ground, cast down by persistent winter winds.

And with the temperature hovering around five degrees, we hunkered down inside Ellesmere in front of the wood burner.

The bar opened early, with Christmas morning champagne and later, mulled wine through to lunch.

Down in the dank and dimly-lit cellar, beneath the barn, a Penfolds Shiraz Bin 128, vintage 2003, lay on its side awaiting a call to action.

We'd carried it with us from Australia.

Placed next to a crystal decanter on the marble top of the Louis 16th sideboard, it gradually lost its sub-terranean chill and warmed to room temperature, 23 degrees.

There was an early skype with relatives in Australia, then we had a late breakfast of avocado, smoked salmon and poached eggs.

Cliona started on the goose, filling the four kilogram bird with a Delia Smith forced-meat stuffing and a second, spiced cranberry and apple mixture.

While the goose rested after two-and-a-half hours in the oven, we had our seafood entrée.

Roast goose, stuffing and vegetables for main course ...

And for dessert ... a tranche of Bûche de Noël from the Port Sainte Marie bakery.

.

While the French celebrate with a grand repas on Christmas Eve, we stick to our traditions and have an indulgent day on the 25th. 

You can easily be a gourmand in France, it is one of the truly great joys of living here.

Wild Boar

We had a visit from our friend Brigitte the other day.

She informed us she had some wild boar for sale, did we want any?

I told her I couldn't take a whole animal but perhaps a shoulder and a leg.

We collected the freshly killed and butchered boar that afternoon and proceeded to cut the shoulder into cubes for a stew.

The rest we put in the freezer.

We had some friends around for lunch. The ragoût de sanglier  was delicious.

The other day, as I walked to the barn, I looked westwards and noticed a large dog running across the ploughed field.

But it was not a dog. It was a wild boar.

It cantered ponderously across the large clay clods, with forequarters that seemed bigger than the rest of its body.

Its big, black-maned head bobbed up and down.

It made its way down the slope and into the forest.

google pic

I looked for pursuing dogs or hunters but saw none. The boar was wisely putting distance between it and danger.

Near dinner time, I asked Cliona about the big broccoli and swedes I had growing in the field.

"Shouldn't we be harvesting them now?"

"No need," she said, "they'll be there next year."

"But what if the wild boar come up out of the woods and dig them up?" I asked plaintively.

"Then we'll eat the boar, so no loss."

I hadn't thought of that.

Her logic was impeccable.