Tag Archives: gardening

Wednesday 28th April 2010 – Today was busy.

This morning first thing I had to go round to Michael’s. He’d just come back from the UK and bought me 10 kilos of oats. And as he was off again this afternoon I needed to rescue them (and pay him) before he went.

Back home I had time to plant some of the seeds that Clare had given me before leaping aboard Caliburn, my trusty steed, and heading off to St Gervais d’Auvergne to meet Liz and go on to Gerzat to record our radio programme. And of course to meet this photographer guy who wanted not just to photograph us but to interview us too. It seems that in the Combrailles we are becoming major news and our publicity is reaching its height. Yes, we are going to be the feature article in … errrr …. a free advert-type newspaper in the Combrailles with a circulation of about 350.

Not quite Le Monde or Paris Match I know, but we remain confident that one day we will be there. I’m eagerly awaiting the day that we will be asked to open our first brocante or be the guests of honour at a concours de belote.

Back at St Gervais d’Auvergne Liz and I went for a coffee or two and discussed our plans for next week. We are going to hit the Chambre de Metiers et de l’Artisanat in Chamailles and get all our business affairs in order. Neither of us has received our formal inscription of our business registrations despite having had an acknowledgement almost a year ago. High time we did something about it.

Back here I planted all of my early potatoes. And I think I’m going to run out of room for the lates and so I’ll have to invent something about that. And I should have gone to football training this evening but today was the hottest day of the year and it’s still 25 degrees up here even with all of the windows open. That’s not a temperature for someone of my age and my level of fitness to be running around. But the weather is supposed to break tomorrow or Friday morning, with rain (the first since April 9th) and a major drop in temperature. If that holds, then training at the Friday night session is a distinct possibility.

Now where have I put my footy boots????

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Friday 16th April 2010 – I must be off my head.

I bet you have been wondering what I’ve been doing going to Clermont Ferrand every Friday evening and what is the real reason behind my sudden quest for fitness. The truth is that a couple of months ago I saw a course advertised on a website and being a keen follower of further education and broadening my sphere of knowledge, I decided that I would talk my way onto it.

And sure enough I did, and I’ve been on this course for six weeks and I am now, would you believe it, a fully-qualified French football referee. I reckoned that seeing as I have more than a passing interest in football and I go to as many local matches as I can, I would take something of a more active role in the sport. If I were really honest about it I’m in no state to actually play and so refereeing would be a suitable role. And it’s also an unusual qualification to have, isn’t it?

Many people had to study hard and take this examination, but not me of course. My route to the top was somewhat easier –
1) They enquired if my parents were married at the time of my birth
and on hearing that the answer was no —
2) They gave me an eyesight test
which I promptly failed …
and so I was passed straight through and didn’t have to sit this 2-hour exam consisting of 44 video extracts of matches and asked several questions on each extract.

Today I did some work up here until about 12:30 and then I started to tidy up in the garden now that work has finished there. This afternoon I had a good go at tidying Caliburn and I have the cab quite clean and tidy.

But I still can’t find my mobile phone and I’ve no idea where it is that I have left it.

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Thursday 15th April 2010 – Tonight’s image …

ford cortina mark 5 gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome france… is another aerial shot, and you can see what I have been doing today. I’ve lengthened the path down in front of the raised beds and filled the base with rubble. And then I’ve filled in the path between the new large bed and the two other beds just below it.

I’ve also done the path between the megacloche and the raised bed in front of it. Those two paths have been made of rubble with a layer of slate on top.

The piles of rubble on the ground floor inside the house are getting smaller and smaller and that is real progress. In certain places you can even see the floor now!

But I’m well-impressed with all of this. I started at the beginning of March so it’s all taken a mere six weeks to accomplish. It’s hard to believe that back in early March it was all looking like this.

Moving the chassis of the Citroen 2CV I found another adder. And again I moved my hand before it could react. Grahame thinks that they must be slow worms, but certainly not. I listened closely to it and it was definitely going “two plus two equals four – three plus three equals six”.

And that reminds me “groan” … ed of the mother who rang up the school to speak to her son’s teacher.
“What kind of maths is this that you are teaching little Johnny? He’s been sitting here last night saying things like ‘two plus two; the sonofabitch is four – three plus three; the sonofabitch is six’ et cetera”
“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning words like that” replied the teacher “but I’ve been trying to get him to say ‘the sum of which is …'”.

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Wednesday 14th April 2010 – I’ve finished all of the beds in the garden

raised bed gardening les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see the last one just here on the right of the image.I can’t go any further for to the right are some fruit trees, behind me is the scrap Ford Transit van and to the left of the raised beds are the old Ford Cortina and the diesel w123 Mercedes 240D. And once we get round to next winter I can think about moving all of the vehicles elsewhere.

But 9 raised beds is enough for now, what with the megacloche as well – you may remember that last year it was just 8 raised beds.

There’s a caravan window across the megacloche for the moment. My tray of radishes and my container of carrots are underneath it hardening off ready to be planted. I needed the space in the greenhouse for the April sowing of seed, which I also did today. But nothing much seems to be germinating and that’s pretty disappointing. I’m sure it didn’t take this long last year.

15 of us at football training tonight. We started off with a few laps around the pitch and then had a game of quick-passing football. After that it was a heading match and then we finished off with a 7-a-side game. There was a new player there tonight – someone who I hadn’t seen before. A big guy, bald and a little on the senior side and called Christophe, which is bound to complicate things as there are already more Christophes than you can shake a stick at.

It reminds me of the old days with the Cheese Hall pub in Crewe. If you wanted a labourer or two to help on a job you would stick your head through the door and shout “Paddy”. You’d be trampled to death in the stampede.

But I digress.

There’a a goalkeeping crisis in the club right now – just one fit keeper for all three teams … “I bet he’s busy then” – ed … and this Christophe is someone who somebody else knows who retired from playing a few years ago but he’s been enticed out of retirement to keep goal for the 2nd XI for the next few weeks while Francois, Michael and Philippe recover from their injuries.

But this training lark – I’m miles off being match-fit and at my age I doubt if realistically I can get back into the right kind of fitness. But there is hope for me yet. If Tomi Morgan can crack it in the Welsh Premier League at his age then I can do it in the 14th level of the French pyramid at two and a half years more.

The proof of the pudding will be when I wake up tomorrow morning and see how the bones feel. I did notice that I was running much more freely tonight, and that’s a good sign.

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Tuesday 13th April 2010 – Just for a change …

… I woke up early this morning. So after breakfast I came back up here and carried on with my website updating for a couple of hours until it was work time.

gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce I had done a couple of hours of that it was downstairs and working on this extra bed again. It’s finished now thank heavens for it wasn’t half a backbreaking task. I reckon I uprooted 12 trees and pulled up about a mile of root segments.

I also pulled up a load of exciting bits and pieces of which the most interesting was part of the brake mechanism for a racing bicycle. I wonder what that was doing there

And while I was at it I started to locate amongst all of the undergrowth the original fruit trees that I planted in 1999. So far, one apple tree and one pear tree and they are both budding.

The new bed will be about 3mx1m and just the job for sowing a load of spuds for this year. The earlies are not far off being ready and they will churn up this new bed quite nicely. But germination of seeds  in the greehouse is soooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooow. Not very much has germinated so I reckon I need to sow another load.

And you know how they say that if something is too good to be true then it usually is? Well I have something simmering away on the back boiler that sounds a bit like that and I am waiting to see what the catch is.

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Monday 12th April 2010 – Well, we are all going to be famous now.

We were all filmed at our Anglo-French Conversation Group this evening – but there’s no need to get excited. It was just one guy with the camera and the microphone and that was that – all very low key. He asked me about 6 questions and then proceeded to film the attendees and ask them a couple of questions.

I was all on my own to do the organising though as Christiane had to work and Liz was busy rescuing Terry from the hospital where she had taken him yesterday. He had had a fight with his chopsaw and finished second.

home made cloche les guis virlet puy de dome franceToday I finished my megacloche and if I had have had time to photograph it I would have regaled you all with a photo yesterday. But anyway, here it is today. It’s 1m20 tall, 1m20 deep and 1m60 wide. The front slopes at 45 degrees and so is a veritable sun trap.

Or it will be when I put some glass in it. I don’t have enough old caravan windows to finish it but Simon reckons he has some old windows lying around and I can go and liberate them in due course.

Once I finished that I started moving the old pile of gravel that I had left when I was taken ill in 2003 and also digging over another raised bed. I know – I said that I wouldn’t dig any more but I have to fight my way in to where the fruit trees start, and there is a strip of about 3.5m x 1m looks so inviting for a bed of potatoes if I can get all the ground alder out.

Being on my own this evening I told Bill about Terry’s little contretemps and asked him to explain it to everyone, which he duly did.
“Not his whole finger? asked Mark incredulously.
“No” replied Bill. “The one next to it”.

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Tuesday 6th April 2010 – I think …

… that Spring might actually have made it.

Yes, a glorious hot day, but of course we have had these before. What actually did the business though was that the temperature in the heat exchanger got up to over 50 degrees – the first time since as long ago as 8th September, would you believe – and in the 15 litres of water underneath the caravan window we had 32 degrees – easily and by far away the highest temperature since I installed a permanent thermometer a few weeks ago.

Yes, Spring might be here but this morning wasn’t. That’ll teach me to mess around with this 3D animation program until it’s starting to get light outside. The boulangere woke me up – at 11:30!

raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut as I said it was a beautiful day, and I took full advantage by planting the lettuce that I bought on Saturday. They’ve gone into a bit of a raised bed that isn’t covered off by a sheet of corrugated iron.

They don’t half look insipid when they are transplanted though and a really good watering didn’t seem to improve matters. They’ll probably need a day or two or three to revigorate.

And after lunch I started to dig out where I’ll be putting the megacloche. And that was none-too-easy as the whole area is honeycombed with tree roots. Of course I forgot to buy a handle for my pickaxe and unfortunately I broke my really good spade, leaving me with just a cheap one. I’ll have to scout around for a new one and it’ll have to be good. Cheap ones don’t last long round here.

I was interrupted by this TV presenter woman who wanted a chat. It seems that she’s serious about talking to us. Our fame must be spreading!

And would you believe it – it’s started to rain now!

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Friday April 2nd 2010 – I thought you might appreciate …

ford cortina mark 5 gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome france… an aerial photograph of the new vegetable garden, such as it is right now.

You can see that I’ve now installed the 8th and final (for the time being) raised bed, but I’ve had to cover it with corrugated iron sheeting as I have run out of black plastic. I’m going to have to buy some more of that.

You’ll also see the nest part of the exercise. I’ve put a board up about 50cms from the edge of the raised beds (just to the right of centre behind the old-pallet duckboarding) and I’ve started to fill the gap with rubble. This will also be covered with old slates in due course and become part of the main path. It will also serve as a slug trap as two beds will be surrounded completely by old slate and these will be the brassica beds. I hope that this anti-slug idea works.

Next part of the plan is to dig out to the left of the new raised bed (the one covered in corrugated iron sheeting) as that is where this new large cloche is to go. I reckon about 1m20 or so at the back sloping down too maybe 35cms at the front and it will make a great place to grow melons, chilis, peppers and the like. I need to experiment with some hot beds in the autumn to see if it will work and provide the heat that I need to force some produce.

Once the cloche is made, that will be the heavy manual work ended in the garden for this year. Ultimately there will be another few raised beds to the right of the new path but I need to move the old van for that and that won’t be happening any time soon. And when I move the two cars I can set down a lawn there but that’s a long time hence.

And I noticed today that the onions have started to rear their ugly heads.

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Thursday 1st April 2010 – We’re cracking on in the garden!

gardening raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see the seventh raised bed – it’s the one on the extreme right at centre-height in the photo. Having dug over everywhere yesterday I made the raised bed – out of Brico Depot Bargain Basement shuttering board, of which I have a considerable amount as it is very handy stuff to have

The older raised beds were made out of board and were 1.40m square, but this board comes in 3m length so I have done this one 1.40 x 1.60.

Once I organised that, I started on digging over where the 8th raised bed will be – behind bed no7. This took ages to dig over – in fact it’s only had its first digging – on the grounds that there are tree roots everywhere and they all need to be hauled out. Mind you I might have made much more progress had I left my bed this morning long before … errr … 10:40. I dunno what’s happening to me about this.

After breakfast I did a couple of hours up here and I’ve put two of the footy web pages on line – this one and this one. Only another 12 to do.

This evening I went round to Michael’s and we had a bit of a jamming session. Because he’s not been playing guitar long I had to teach him some music theory, which is quite difficult as I don’t know it myself. He’s off to the UK in a couple of days time but we resolved that when he came back we would try to get together maybe once a week and see what we shall see. In the meantime I’ll have a rummage through my record collection and look for some 12-bar blues stuff (some Flying Aces stuff or JJ Cale – that kind of thing) and make up a disk of stuff to have a play with.

And all day we had intermittent showers, hailstorms, heavy rain – you name it, we had it. And last night the temperature dropped below freezing.

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Wednesday 31st March 2010 – Yeeuucchhh

A couple of weeks ago I made a comment something along the lines that summer had finally arrived because over the previous 7 days the minimum temperature had risen from minus 9 to plus 9.

Well, a week ago we had just had a 7-day period of extremely minimal rainfall. This last 7 days though we have had a grand total of 54mm. 7 days ago I did a load of washing and noticed that the water butts were running really low. Tonight they are overflowing.

Terry and I went down to football training but there was no chance of any football tonight. Those girls from Saturday could have held their swimming gala on there, there was that much standing water.

But the plants seem now to be bursting into life. The herb trays are bursting forth, the radishes have gone berserk and now the carrots, spinach and beetroot have come to life. They are obviously enjoying this weather. I’m glad someone is.

This morning I did two hours work upstairs. I’ve transcribed all of my outstanding footy notes and I can bring the football website up-to-date. But while I was transcribing the footy notes I came across some notes that I had dictated on a journey to Hamburg back in early 2007. I’d forgotten all about those.

After that I carried on laying the paths around the raised beds and I’ve done as much as I can. That’s another pile of builders’ rubble and old slate accounted for. So bearing in mind the garden springing to life I’ve started to dig over where the last (for now) of the raised beds will be. And while I was digging up tree roots and the like I noticed that one of the apple trees I planted all those years ago seems to be coming to life, even though it is thoroughly overgrown by rampant ground alder. I reckon I ought to have a go at clearing some of that rubbish away from it to give it some room.

But back at the football there was only a handful who had turned out for training and someone suggested we practised dribbling around some old bollards that they have for training purposes. But I cautioned against it. It recalled too many memories of when this kind of training became a la mode back in the late 1960s. Crewe Alexandra, my home team, was one of the first to try it back in 1967 and during one of the very first training sessions the sports editor of the Crewe Chronicle rang up the club
“How’s this new training session going?” he asked.
“Dreadful” replied Ernie Tagg, the club manager. “The bollards are winning 2-0“.

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Monday 29th March 2010 – We now have SIX raised beds in the vegetable plot.

6 raised beds garden les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe last one of these I had to cut a couple of new sides as the original ones had split. The next couple of beds I’m going to have to build up from scratch.

There’s only two more to make, but I’m going to be building a new cloche about 3 times the size of the existing one and about twice as high. That’ll be for melons and cucumbers and so on and I’ll use the existing one for strawberries.

MInd you there was a point when I didn’t think I would get anything done today. What with the change in hours today I found it a little difficult to leave my stinking pit. And then I had a phone call, a parcel from the postwoman, a parcel from a courier (my new Nikon camera has arrived!!!!) followed by a visit from my Dutch neighbours. By the time I’d finished my breakfast it was almost 12:00!

This morning started off bright and sunny snd for a moment I thought that Spring had come back. But of course it wasn’t to last and it clouded over progressively until by teatime it was positively pouring down with rain.

You might remember a few months ago I had a jamming session with a guitarist and a drummer in Montaigut. Michael the guitarist phoned me up this afternoon and asked if I wanted to get together again. So with being out tomorrow night at a CREFAD meeting, wednesday football training and Friday in Clermont Ferrand, that only left Thursday evening.

Do you know that when I lived in Brussels there was so much more to do and so many more people to do it with, yet I never seemed to do very much. However down here in the back of beyond I’m rushed off my feet and have far more going for me than I ever did back there!

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Friday 26th March 2010 – On my way …

rainbow heavy rain beauregard vendon puy de dome france… to Clermont Ferrand this evening I passed under the autoroute, went round the bend … “no surprise there” – ed … above Beauregard Vendon and noticed this absolutely magnificent rainbow dangling underneath the clouds.

You need to enlarge the photo to see it and it’s not really all that clear even then, but it wasn’t half impressive. I wish I had taken the Pentax, poorly though it is, with me.

1951 citroen U23 lorry st bonnet puy de dome franceA couple of miles further on at St Bonnet there was a Citroen U23 lorry from 1951 parked at a garage at the side of the road so I stopped and took some pics of that too. No old vehicles for months and months and then two good ones – the Studebaker of Sunday and now this one – in a couple of days.

This morning I was much more mobile – most of the aches seem to have worn off. But after breakfast I came up here for three hours and did some more stuff for the radio programme. I can now tell you all about registering with French Social Security.

gardening raised beds slate pathways les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch I went into the garden and braved the wind and rain (we had ONLY 22mm of rain today and it’s p155ing down now). I didn’t install any more raised beds today but I’ve started doing the paths in between them. People keep asking me what I ontend to do with the rubble and old slate still in the first floor bedroom- well now you know. The rubble from the dividing wall is the base of the path and the slates are the top covering. They say that slates discourage slugs from crossing but I don’t care – it makes a good path and there’s plenty of it. Slug-repellant capacities will be a bonus.

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Thursday 25th March 2010 – God it was hard this morning …

… but that’s enough about Percy Penguin, who doesn’t feature in these pages half as much as she ought to.

It was agony in bed last night with the muscles in my legs tightening up continually. It kept me awake for much of the night, as did the French Air Force, who decided on carrying out night-time manoeuvres … “personoeuvres please” – ed … until gone 02:30. Getting up for a gipsy’s at 06:00 was probably the most painful thing I have ever tried.

Going downstairs for breakfast was interesting too, and I was clearly in no fit state to go out working so I came back up here and did a load of outstanding work on the computer – much of which was the preparation for our radio broadcast next week. I managed a fair bit too – but that’s enough about … “you’ve already done that” – ed … and that’s got me thinking.

When I was in Brussels I used to do my computer work from 11:00 until 14:00 and then work on the apartment in the afternoon and evening. Pretty soon the clocks will go forward and we will have more daytime daylight  so bearing this in mind I could easily work from 10:00 until 12:00 up here on the computer and then work until maybe 19:00 or 19:30 outside. That would be much more useful.

By about 12:00 I felt a little better so I went outside and did another raised bed. That’s 5 in position. But the weather has changed. It was blowing a gale when I went outside, so much so that it’s lifted the cucumber and tomato seeds off the shelf in the greenhouse and spilled them all over the floor so I needed to replant them which was a pain.

Now the weather has really turned and it’s pouring with rain outside. I have mixed feelings about that. I love the hot weather but I’m getting low on water and also the plants that I have sown need the water. This is the sign if a true rural peasant, definitely a distinction from the vacancier.

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Wednesday 24th March 2010 – I must be off my head

Yes – at my age (which I shudder to think about) I’ve restarted football training! I’m out of condition, I realise that, and it’s one of those things that if I let it drag then it won’t ever improve. It’ll just get worse and worse. It’s probably 25 years since I last played a football match and 10 years since I last did anything serious in the way of fitness. When I lived in Brussels I used to go running every night and I could run for miles, but when I moved from Duysbergh to Expo in 2000 I stopped as the terrain was not suitable. And since I was ill and lost all my energy I’ve just not been able to do a thing.

Three laps round the football pitch tonight finished me off and then we had a 7-a-side game for 30 minutes each half. But after about 10 minutes I went to play sweeper as you don’t have to run around very much.

At least I managed to get a shower out of it (and we aren’t talking about OUSA here!) – but it’s a hell of a way to do it. I’ve a feeling that I’m going to regret this tomorrow morning and I can already feel my leg muscles tightening up.

This morning I went round to discuss this newspaper thing. Apparently there’s going to be a committee of three running it – an owner/editor, a financial consultant, and a typestter/website manager. You can guess which role I’m earmarked for. Two years of doing General Electric’s training leaflets followed by 11 months redesigning The Conference Board’s documents has sttod me in good stead as I knew it would. I also took the opportunity to rustle up the deatails of events taking place in due course – we need to pad out our radio programme with stuff.

And while we are on the subject you might remember a photo that graced these pages a while back – that of Le Quartier all lit up with Christmas lights. I sent it to a friend who is the reporter for that area for the local newspaper. She sent it in to the paper and apparently they featured it in glorious technicolour as “photo of the day”. Now how about that?

In other news, back at the ranch I don’t just have my radishes coming up, I also have my marjoram and my spinach. This garden is looking impressive if it all works. And I put in my fourth raised bed today.

But somehow I have a feeling that I won’t be doing too much tomorrow. Ouch!

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Tuesday 23rd March 2010 – If you look in this photo …

raised bed garden greenhouse water butt les guis virlet puy de dome france… you’ll notice a few changes. From right to left we have the outline of the greenhouse. It’s far from being erected as I said previously as I don;t have the bolts for it and there’s no glass. But at least it’s in position.

Next to it is a water butt. It’s one that has been hanging around here for quite a while so I reckoned that I would put it to use. There are loads of receptacles full of old rainwater so I filled it with that. Bucket by bucket as there is no way of connecting it to my water system. Not yet anyway, but I have a cunning plan.

Thirdly you will notice a third raised bed. I installed that this afternoon too. I need to get a move on with these as I noticed to my astonishment that the radishes seem to have germinated (since Thursday!) – there’s definitely signs of movement in that seed tray.

So that was this afternoon’s work. What about this morning? Well there wasn’t all that much of that. I had to get up in the middle of the night to go for a gipsy’s but the next thing I remember was that it was 09:54. A leisurely breakfast on the terrace was followed by the realisation that –

  1. it was a gorgeous bright sunny day
  2. all of the batteries were fully charged (and it was only just 10:30)
  3. there was a decent wind blowing

That can only mean one thing – WASHING! So I scouted around and found a machine-load of stuff

While the washing was a-doing I did a bit of housekeeping and general arranging so as to keep on top of what there is to do around here.

And did you all hear us on the radio this evening? Yes, Liz and I were on the air!

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