One Roof Beam, Two Roof Beams...

And while the floor of the half barn was receiving its top coat of cement, up went the first beam.

I'm afraid that I had a tear in my eye as I watched. In my heart there was much gladness. But my eyes were welling up. Oh not so anyone would notice, but they were there. I suppose I was being silly: it is just that it has been a bit of a long road.........


And then the second beam went up! Maybe before the end of the year she will have her bonnet!

And the waltzing storm clouds came....

.....and made her glow.....


....as they did me.

From over the hill they came, just before sunset....

.....which enabled them to have their underbelly tickled by the last of the sunlight..

..which rosied them up....


....and up!


And as the Day put herself to bed, she flirted with the Night, playing with the sunlight upon the clouds....


Until the Night said 'Enough!' Be away now, and rest, but yet still the Day continued to romp...


And after one last flurry of light, the Day consented to being done.


And as the Night captured the skies, the Day slid into rest.

...as indeed I do now! It is getting late. Boolie is sitting at the door of The Hut, keeping a look-out for things to bark at, Lester is already finished with the Day and has gone to bed, and now I must do the same.

Things I have learnt: That sky-watching is fascinating and awe inspiring and that one needs to take the time to do so when the Heavens are putting on a show.
That is also awe inspiring to watch the builders shimmying up and down the ladders but that one has to be discrete about paying too much attention to them. Unlike the Heavens, they are not particularly fussed about being watched!
That I have a love in my heart for this place.

Musings under the oak

Well there aren't any musings actually because I fell asleep! But I am sure there would have been had I stayed awake.

Afternoon seista. Two minutes in the bedroom caravan and I was cooked. Nothing for it but to grab my pillow and a spare duvet, out onto the back field where HG has obligingly cut a nice chunk of lawn, and park up under one of the oak trees by Duck Pond Wood.

Now there is something about looking up at a leafy canopy overhead. And I started doing some musings, honestly I did. But then sleep came. So I didn't.





All I can do is share with you a picture of where I would have done my musings if I had of stayed awake long enough.

Meanwhile Labartere slumbered on as well. No builders today. Johnathen came for the afternoon and did some more in the half barn, before the heat made him shut down for the day.

And swinging slightly to the right, in the centre is the fig tree which has done an almighty spurt of growth since last year. Up at the top of the blog page you can see the fig tree in 2008, so you can make comparisons.

By the way the washing line was run over by the digger on Monday. I am surprised it had survived as long as it did, being in a position which has been central to the builders work in progress area. But now its foot has gone all akimbo. Washing lines only have one foot if they are twirlers. Others here have four feet, two at either corner. Have an accident with one of them and you still have three others left. Not so my twirly-gig. Will have to batter my eyelids at HG to see if can thwack it back into place. Not today though, as he has gone for a early evening nap after missing out on post lunch siesta because he was having a manly gossip with Johnathen.

Things I have learnt today: Hot days are dozy days, and are best enjoyed outside under the shade of a lovely big tree even if one's eyes refuse to stay open to enjoy the green vista overhead.

Onions and storms

This 'ere is an onion. Well you would know this of course! Only I wanted to show this one because it is just about ready to be pulled up.

Or is it. Because Head Gardener Lester is dithering about doing so. For months these onions have been growing. Planted last November, they have been watched over, inspected every day, and worried about. Only most of them decided to sprout flower heads which they aren't supposed to do because it reduces their helpfulness towards providing us with food-table fodder.

The flower stem uses up all the onion bulb, or in other words, the onion puts all its effort into putting up a flower head which leaves the bulb small and virtually unusable.

Of course the plant is only doing its best for its future productivity. It is supposed to be carrying itself forward to the next generation and it is not going to be able to do that if it makes a nice fat bulb which is going to be eaten to make our food taste nice. So, the onions choice is: make a flower and provide a future generation, or make a fat, juicy bulb for the food table.

If I was an onion, I know what option I would choose!

And HG, bless him, in our veg plot, reviewing the situation.

Any day now he will march out to the plot and do the deed. But not quite for the moment. It is still nice to review a well filled veg plot. Soon it will become all emptied out as the onions and potatoes are harvested. Then we will have to start all over again with another set of crops, and off we go again. Note my red floor-mop bucket to the left of HG, which is proof that he raids my kitchen for various types of utensils when needs must. Bless.

Wow, but there was a hell of a storm last night up in the sky. The curious thing was that at ground level it was quiet, with hardly a breath of air movement. Yet up in the sky there was hellish things going on.

If I had tried to paint this sky it would have looked unreal.










Things I have learnt today: That nature is a powerful animal. That living the caravan life gives opportunities to stand outside on the blackest of nights and photoshoot the sky. That it is best not to disregard the flashes of lightning in the distance because it gives warning that I shouldn't be partaking of such an activity, but fortunately Hubs took charge and cancelled the photoshoot by hauling me inside and off to bed. That onions have a life of their own and that really we are only borrowing them for our own pleasure. That one must not get mad at onions if they decide they do not want to comply with what we demand of them.

Welcoming the rain

Sending you a picture of one of our trees in full seed production, unfortunately none of which are edable! But the seeds look nice when they lift away from the tree: they look like yellow snowflakes.

And what joy it was to hear the rain pattering on the caravan roof late last night. "Thank goodness", we both said in unison, "we can do more digging once the soil is wet".

And so it is that we are continuing to change from indoor UK-townie types, to outdoors, we-need-the-rain-so-things-can-grow people.

You see, once upon a time we would felt piddled off with wet weather. For Lester, it was either a wet cycle ride to work, or a very wet walk, or chancing going in the car which was a mini and didn't like wet weather at all, tending to stop if the puddles became too deep. Plus the on-going stress of whether to have the headlights on, or the windscreen wipers, or the heater because it fogged up inside like a sauna. He could never have all three switched at the same time, because then that perverse mini would go on strike and stop. For me, it was wet dog walks, bringing a very wet spaniel home and having to dry him off before he shook himself all over the carpet.

Now all has changed. The mini is still in the UK, minus us of course, Lester doesn't have to cycle the bike and only has a couple of yards to walk to get to work. The same for me. And we don't have to do wet dogs, because now Boolie doesn't like going out in the rain at all, whereas before, in the UK, he was always out of the door like a bullet every time it was opened, no matter what the state of the weather was. Not so here. Because he is outside all the time, he now likes to be inside during inclement weather. He will actually stand at the door and have a think about whether it is a good idea, or not, to go out.

And so the rain kept falling, all night did it fall. And when I woke up this morning, it was still raining, and with great relief I snuggled back down in my caravan bed, knowing that the rain was looking after our produce and that we could stand down from the task of watering it. I now find the rain a blessing rather than an irritation. It is, after all, part of the natural cycle of life. If it doesn't rain, nothing will grow.

I may need to be reminded of that when we hit the first of the summer storms in a couple of months time!

During a break in the weather, Lester headed off to the compost heap, and was brought to a standstill by the sight of a red deer standing under our oak tree eyeballing him. Another one came out of the woods and did the same. It would seem that they know us because they didn't scamper off with fright. I think they have been watching us. A part of us is troubled by this imminent threat to our food table. Another part of us is smiling at the thought of having deer so close by.

And arriving on Friday was the first of our roof-wood. Two huge beams, which were put in the same day by our stirling roofers.





The wood is now soaked. By the rain it has become soaked. The ground is now soaked. By the rain has it become soaked.

But we are looking good, because according to Meteo France, tomorrow we will have sun and clouds, which means we can get outside and do another couple of feet of digging. So..... although we got soaked today, it was all for a good cause. Because we might get to catch up with Denise over at Malarkey Manor's exhuberant growth rate for her produce. At the moment our tomato plants number five and they are a centimetre tall. The wild flower seeds are coming up, but are only showing two tiny leaves. The potatoes are doing well, numbering 50 plus, the kiwis are sprouting, and everything else is thinking about whether to wake up or not.

However, we do not have to water tomorrow, and we can go do a bit of digging because the rain, bless it, fell on us. Hopefully, some of our seeds will get going so we can get something planted in the open ground. And hopefully the deer will decide to be charitable and realise that perhaps they ought to eat other things, like the plentiful grass, or the ripening fields of oil seed rape.

Sending blessings out to you all, and hoping you have a good week....

PS. I haven't forgotten about telling you about the rotovator!

Roof tiles up: Yippee!

Well, maybe a little prematurely doth the word 'yippee' venture into this blog. Yes, the roof tiles are back on part of the house.






But: upside down!








Not to worry though. It is becoming a daily fascination as to what our French trio of roofers are going to be up to next, and today they came up with the answer to the problem of how they were going to get the cement ring beam across ropey old walls. Roof tiles! Inverted.

It is my intention to try and keep as much of the rebuild history available to our eyes once it is done. In other words, nothing is going to be covered up if I can help it. I think the artistry of the inverted roof tiles will be quite fetching in the future: a real talking point. "Atchoo" Oopps, sorry a sneeze. And another.

Et voila the culprit: these fields of gorgeous yellow oil seed rape plants which are now on two of our fields. Crikey, but the pollen count has been going up, because my nose and throat have been telling me so. And how can such a pretty looking plant smell so awful. My nose did a recoil this morning when it first hit the aroma which is similar to rotting cabbage.

No tree planting today, Head Gardener / Tech Team Guy has planted another seven over the last few days and is knackered. Only got another two to go, and then that is our tree planting over for this year. Thirty I think. And he has the callouses on his hands to prove it. Oh where are the lily white UK hands? And where are my pristine clean hands gone as well? All gone. I now have farm-girl hands, with permanently mucky nails, and Lester is getting farmer-hands.

And we have something coming up in our cold frame pots. A problem: do all seeds look the same when they first break through the soil? Or are we growing wild flowers: weeds, in other words. I still think the donkey dung manure is far too rich to get weeny little seeds to grow. And I am still thinking about making a sneaky purchase of a bag of potting compost and putting it away somewhere.

So maybe we are growing veggies or maybe we aren't. Some of the roof tiles are back on the roof although are upside down. Our fields are full of sunshine yellow even when the sun isn't shining. "Atchoo", "Atchoo".....sneezing myself merrily on my way. Cheerio for now.

Before you go, have a look at this. Looks like a spiral of energy over the house! "A..tishoo".

Wild eating

"Maddi (Bruno's wife) eats dandelion leaves. She went out on a dandelion hunt when we got back from getting the donkey manure. She says that they are one of their favourite foods. Has them in salads. Also makes jam with the flower heads", Lester said.

We looked at each for a moment, in silence. We were having our after lunch lie-down. Well, we are in France, and are trying to live according to the French way of life, and if one has to conform with certain behaviours the French have, then that is what one must do.

"Why do I feel uncomfortable with that?" I asked him.

"Doesn't feel right, does it", he replied "Don't know what's pee'd or s***t on it".

Oh so why do we have trouble with wild food. Apparently dandelion is considered a delicacy around here, so why do we feel squeamish about eating it. What is it that has distorted our perception of this plant? What training have we had in our past which has tainted our receptiveness towards using this plant for table food.

And why does this extend to other wild food as well? Why do we feel uncomfortable with eating anything that doesn't come off a supermarket shelf or market stall? Have we become so de-sensitized to real food?

Food for thought, heh?

This morning. The sun was just getting out of bed.
The photo at the top of the page is of the mist itself. It is, after all, made up of round droplets of water, which the flash on the camera has been reflected from. It is an intriguing world when one looks at it from different perspectives.

Sharing a sunny dawn, poles, and other miscellenia

An early morning shot of our front field. I was having a wander around, having a look at this and that, and the morning was so lovely that I wanted to share it with you.

The dark green field belongs to us, the houses you can see are our nearest neighbours down the lane.






Same morning, and swinging right towards the house. This is the path between the field and the house.





And swinging right again towards the back field. In the background is the bridge over the Adour, and the road to Prechac and Plaisance.

Lester has been tree planting this week,(and here is one of them) having 'rescued' 6 fruit trees from a friends garden, bought several more from a man who was retiring from running his plant-selling business, and yet more from a nursery at Aire sur l'Adour. The donkey manure has come in very useful for this enterprise, and Lester is building muscles in abundance as he is also digging in loads of poles which resemble a mini-Colditz, but he assures me that it will look less like a prison when the wire is up (?), but I think it will look even better when the plants are growing on it and covering it up.

Five kiwi's are to be put there - we fell in love with kiwi fruit after having been given a bag full by Claudine of the Chambre d'hote (which you can see in the background. She had a load of them in the bottom of her fridge, which she had harvested in November last year. And they were gorgeous - nothing like the ones I've had from the UK supermarkets. Upon instruction from Claudine, we had to buy three females to one male kiwi plant, and much merriment was had by all as she tried to put across this message in her perfect-French and nil-English, to me and Lester who have partially-nil-French. In case we got it wrong we bought a mutli-sexed plant as well. So five in total are going in on the Colditz fence.


In the before-time of the Labartere experience, I had a garden which backed onto woods. For long summer days, through a time of water shortage, I had to water that garden by hand. Up and down those steps I went with my bucket, managing to survive the plants by my efforts.

Come the winter, on a garden reconnaisance trip, I noticed the plants eaten down, some almost to the ground. With horror I saw my efforts of the summer go down the drain, or rather down the throats of the muntjak deer who were jumping the low fence to partake of the nourishment that I had so kindly grown for them during the previous months. With hilarity did Lester enjoy my efforts at deer defence: recyled Christmas decorations, silver foil, knitting wool, old CDs. None worked, and since the new owners of the house thought it really cool that the garden was visited by deer, I gave up. There weren't that many plants left by the time we vacated the house.



Voila! Les Poles. And so I get my own back! Because we have deer here as well. HUGE deer, not little ones, who have eaten our cabbages already, which were the only crop we managed to get in last autumn.
But they didn't eat all of the plant, they just took a munch out of the top of it which is such a waste...after all, if one is hungry then one should take the lot, but they don't...just a mouthful of each one, that's all they take.

And Lester fumed with outrage at this theft, even threatening to join the chaisse (local hunting group) to kill them off. Only he won't do that, because I think he secretly enjoys having them around: on the first morning we arrived, after a humungous few days of effort, he saw a big male deer in the cornfield, and yesterday one bounded across our field into our woods. So I don't think he will shoot them, but he is becoming very guarded about our veggie plot: hence the Colditz fence. We also have wild boar around, although we haven't seen them on Labartere, but I did pass two road-killed boars the other day out on the D935, so they are definitely around. Normally the local people will retrieve the dead animal and cook it, but I suppose they couldn't do that with these two - they were splattered all over the road, so I presume the crows, magpies and eagles will have a feast. One had already tried and also ended up splattered.

So in this protected veggie plot we have onions already: loads of onions! Plus some soft fruit bushes which I keep meaning to put a net over to keep the birds off. Apparently they, too, like to partake of things we are growing, including the little buds on our fruit bushes. It would seem that being self-sufficient also means increasing the food table for the wild life. Ah well, c'est la vie!


Couldn't let you leave without showing you how we are getting on with the house. It has been a lovely week here, with the temperatures getting up to 25 degrees C here during the afternoons. So the builders are Somewhere Else. Being French, bless them, probably off somewhere enjoying the sun. But not to matter. With the roof project taking so long, it does give us a chance to consolidate our finances. If it had been done by now, which it was supposed to have been when we accepted the divi (quote) then we would be very near the margin financially. As it is, at least we have time for Lester to change course with work, and for me to get Labartere Publishing and the Holistic Therapy Shop going on my web site. So there is always a silver lining to be had when things don't progress at quite the pace one would like them to when they first start.


But at least the eaves are all up now, and my washing is getting dried - we did a swop recently: Lester's old computer for a French top loading washing machine. So the portable camp gadget which my Bruv kindly donated, and which has been used loads of times to get our washing done is now in partial retirement. It has done a grand job, but the plod of lugging buckets of water from the cold water tap to fill it up, and then warm water out onto the fields was getting a bit much in the really cold weather. Also standing outside to the washing was making bits of me go into complaining mode which even I could not eventually ignore! So, this load of drying washing is a bonus for me.

The mound of green tarp you see in the front is covering our leather settee, freezer and other stuff. When the builders started work everything had to come out of the half barn which was OK when the tarps were up on the tall barn. But along came that tempest in late January (re blog:A Big Wind) and off the tarps did come, so we have no dry space left in the house or barns. Does that matter? At first it did, and I doubt that any of our furniture will survive. But it doesn't matter. We can always replace what doesn't survive. But what we do have, which are more important, are the memories which we are laying down here, which are priceless.

And here is a sign of Spring, with frostiness icing this little plant which has decided it simply has to herald the arrival of warmer weather by putting on a growth spurt.

I think it is significant for us nearly having survived our first winter, camping out in our caravans, here at Labartere.