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.

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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.

Is it the sun?

 

Tonight, after returning to the house from my sundowner in the garden, I spy the sun rising in the east.

But it is 5.30pm!

I look to the west, and see the washed colours of a late autumn sunset.

That is the brightest moon I've ever seen!

Late autumn sky

After a day's work in the garden, it's time for a sundowner.

I sit in my usual spot by the barn, looking out to the south.

I can see beyond the first ridge, beyond Clermont Dessous and St Medard to a distant skyline ... the Pyrenees!

In the crepuscular light, it makes a saw-toothed crease on the far horizon, but close enough to set one dreaming.

Because beyond the Pyrenees lies Spain, and beyond Spain ... Morocco.

While its peaks are normally hidden behind haze or cloud, occasionally, just occasionally, there they are.

Overhead, the thinnest crescent moon appears in the west, above the tops of the Lalandi pines, like a sharp tear in the sky.

A bird of prey hovers above the grass below the fruit trees. He swoops low but then arcs upwards and flies away. Maybe he spotted me sitting here.

I love the calm, approaching night. 

The sky is brushed with horses' tails turned pink by the setting sun.

There's a chill in the air.