Saturday 4 June 2016

Goodness me, the sun has turned us into planks!

Swiftly the chill winds stopped blowing,
the rain went somewhere else,
leaving the sun to shine its warmth down on us.
 
Now one would have thought that finally we should rejoice,
and we are / did,
it is just that the sudden burst of good weather threw our bodies into shock,
and we both became as stiff as planks,
Lester, out in Veg Plot 2,
rescuing the potatoes which were fast becoming strangled with weeds,
and getting them earthed up toute suite,
well he could hardly stand up,
knealing down for a couple of hours having convinced his body,
that this should be his 'normal' posture from now on,
and wouldn't let him get up again.
As for me,
I was doing my indoor things,
and getting stiffer by the minute.
 
I suppose it was the sudden change in temperatures that did it.
Today we are at least able to move better.
 
A walk round the farm,
and Lester was working out how many pots of jam
 we should be able to make with the fruit he expects to harvest this year.
In a good year,
when I am functioning in the kitchen better than I was last year,
(well we were under renovation for most of the year,
which kept me in a tizz for most of the time)
I would make about sixty pots of jam.
Now that sounds quite a lot,
but we do like our DIY bread and DIY jam for breakfast,
and for snacks.
Back in the UK we would have lots of nibbles in the larder,
like bars of chocolate, packets of biscuits and crisps,
and all the other things which seem to fall into the
shopping basket when supermarket shopping,
with one's husband.
 
But then we came to France,
and started on the long journey towards feeding ourselves.
Chocolate bars and packets of biscuits and crisps do not grow on trees,
but fruit to make jam does,
and over time we have grown to love and enjoy our more simple way of eating,
especially bread / toast with a slathering of jam.
 
I am not saying that it was easy,
and in the beginning we did have patches of having withdrawal symptoms
from the rubbish that we had been eating in our old life,
so we did have supermarket raids,
and we did fill our shopping basket with 'naughties',
but that is happening less and less.
And when we do indulge ourselves we tend to have stomach problems afterwards.
It would seem that we have become sensitized to the contents of that type of food,
possibly the chemical contents,
which would not allow us to go back to our old ways of eating,
which is a good thing.
Cadbury's Fruit and Nut chocolate bars?
Sadly, no.
But we do have the occasional jar of Nutella,
just for now you understand,
just until the fruit harvest comes in
and we get DIY jam back on the shelves of our larder.
 
Speaking of which,
(the larder)
I am sorry to say that the once filled shelves are empty,
except for the jars waiting to be filled again.
 
How did this....
 

....become this......
 

.
....Easy! We have eaten it all!
But to be fair to myself,
I did lose my food storing momentum towards the end of last year,
2015 having been a tiring year because of the work we had done to the house.
But it is as it is,
so soon those jars will be filled up again.
Meanwhile, yes I am ashamed to say this,
we are eating bread and jam,
but supermarket jam.
But we have not bought any Nutella for a while,
and we are definitely not buying any chocolate bars or crips, etc.
except for a packet of Snickers last Sunday,
when we needed our sugar levels kept up
because we had a gig with the band.
Bread and jam would have given us sticky hands
as we played our instruments!
 
Bye for now,
Vx
 
 


16 comments:

rusty duck said...

I love your header pic :)
Hope the good weather stays with you now. We could do with a bit of that rain you've had.

Vera said...

JESSICA, that header pic took me ages and ages to fiddle about with, but thanks for liking it. As for the rain....... we had lots and lots, but everything is now drying up at a frightening rate, so we could do with a wee drop of the good stuff again!

Cro Magnon said...

That photo of your larder (filled) is magnificent! Our stocks too are dwindling, I always process lots of Tomato based sauces, and I noticed yesterday that I am down to my last one (Courgettes in Tomato sauce). I shall have to make more this year.

Hot and sunny for about a week now, then back to rain again.

Vera said...

CRO MAGNON, 'tomato based sauces'....now that is something I would like to have in my larder, but probably not this year as our tomato seedlings are taking an age to get going.

Best to get outside and enjoy the sun then! But at least we won't have to do much watering!

Dawn said...

We eat a fair bit of bread of jam, jam stores here are dwindling I am looking forward to building them up again, any chocolate we have here seems to be gifts and it does tend to sit there, I still ave chocolate and sweets from Christmas 2014 I am using them in baking now, crisps we do like and I am happy to make our own if we dont have any.
Love the new header photo, sorry didnt make it to the post office van last week will do tomorrow :-)

Kerry said...

That's the best excuse for buying Snickers I've ever heard - tee hee :)

Vera said...

DAWN, soooo glad that someone else likes bread and jam as well! I had a couple of bars of cooking chocolate in the cupboard for ages before I used them up, so I think we have left behind our chocoholic time.

KERRY, actually, ......um......well......it had been a while since we had been naughty!

DUTA said...


That's for sure; the fickliness of the weather doesn't do us good.
The only jam I like is apricot jam, no sugar added, 100%fruit (that's what they say on the label). Toasted bread with jam is a wonderful snack - in fact, too wonderful.
By the way, dieticians don't distinguish between home made jam and supermarket jam. In both cases, it's processed food. If you want something sweet, they say - eat the fruit.

Vera said...

DUTA, I am sorry to disagree with the dieticians, but fruit made into jam within hours of being picked from the tree must surely be better for you than commercially made jam. And it is a good way of preserving the harvest for winter use. I like apricot jam but don't make much because apricot trees seem to struggle here, unlike the fig trees which are full of fruit this year.

PioneerPreppy said...

Interesting I feel a bit more stiff on the days it doesn't rain here lately too... I never thought they were connected.

Rhodesia said...

Wish our shelves were empty but they are not. I have masses of jam and it something we rarely eat. This year the fruit will be dried and we will eat that instead :-) Keep well Be back in July Diane

Vera said...

PIONEERPREPPY, it just seemed odd that the sun shone, temperatures zoomed up, and into planks we were made! Not sure why this happened. Must do an internet search when I have time!......

DIANE, although our shelves are empty our freezers are still very full! Have a good trip.

Ohiofarmgirl said...

i had to run right over and ask about the flooding in Paris... will you be affected by any of it? what a seen to see the Seine so high!

Lisa @ Two Bears Farm said...

I can a lot of jam each summer. We use the wine berries which grow on our property. Like you, we do eat it. And it makes nice gifts come Christmas if we have extras. I like your larder!

Marty said...

Wow. Those shelves are testament to your industry. And kudos for shedding the land of chemicals.

Vera said...

OHIOFARMGIRL, no flooding down here, which makes a change because we are prone to flooding when there is a lot of rain about.

LISA, my larder looks OK when it has full jars on it, but looks very sad when those jars are empty!

MARTY, it took quite a while to stop eating chemical laden food, but the longer we are away from our old lifestyle in the UK and the 'bad' food we used to eat, the more healthy we are feeling.