Having just made Limoncello you now have 6 naked lemons. What are you going to do with them?
This is a very simple lemon sorbet recipe - I can never be bothered boiling zest and adding eggs etc. Call me lazy.
200g Sugar
200ml Water
Juice of 6 lemons
Mix the sugar and water in a pan and heat until it boils then turn off heat.
Add the lemon juice
Cool a bit and put in to ice cream maker (if you have one you freeze in the freezer rather than providing it's own chill you will need to cool in the fridge until it is cold otherwise the icecream maker runs out of grunt before the sorbet is frozen)
You can also make without a icecream maker by putting in a bowl in the freezer and taking out periodically and stirring (I have never been diligent enough for this to work as I usually end up with a solid block of fruity flavoured ice rather than icecream)
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Limoncello Recipe
1.5l jar
10 lemons
1 litre vodka or other unflavoured spirit. Ideally 100% proof.
600g sugar
300ml water (or more or less will make the limoncello stronger or weaker. Use less if your original spirit was less strong)
Initially the lemon zest is soaked in the spirit, then after a few weeks a sugar syrup is added.
Zest the lemons and put zest in to a jar (here is idea for what to do with the rest of the lemos)
Add the spirits
The liquid goes yellow quite quickly, but ideally leave for a month.
After this time, mix the water and sugar together in a pan and heat until the sugar melts. Cool and add to the jar (you can add hot also - I believe the finished product may be a little cloudy if you do this which can look nice too, but I have never tried)
Now more patience is required you should leave another month at least.
Strain to remove the lemon zest (now lost almost all it's yellow) and bottle (or just leave in the big jar if you prefer)
10 lemons
1 litre vodka or other unflavoured spirit. Ideally 100% proof.
600g sugar
300ml water (or more or less will make the limoncello stronger or weaker. Use less if your original spirit was less strong)
Initially the lemon zest is soaked in the spirit, then after a few weeks a sugar syrup is added.
Zest the lemons and put zest in to a jar (here is idea for what to do with the rest of the lemos)
Add the spirits
The liquid goes yellow quite quickly, but ideally leave for a month.
After this time, mix the water and sugar together in a pan and heat until the sugar melts. Cool and add to the jar (you can add hot also - I believe the finished product may be a little cloudy if you do this which can look nice too, but I have never tried)
Now more patience is required you should leave another month at least.
Strain to remove the lemon zest (now lost almost all it's yellow) and bottle (or just leave in the big jar if you prefer)
Battle against the ants
I don't mind ants as such (as long as they don't sting - these ones don't and are quite small) but when my cereal is crawling with them in the morning it is a bit much.
They are very persistant, I suppose numbers are on their side.
I read on the internet that they cannot cross talc so we tried it out...
Amazingly it seems to be true, as soon as they touch it they change direction and never try to walk over it. Of course it cannot solve all the ant issues (quite apart from it being impractical to live with talc across the front door for ever) as it is harder to make it stick to the walls.
As far as we can tell there are quite a few living under the doorstep and the plan to allow talc free living is to block up all the holes. It seems that there are also a number of holes that go right through the wall as they pop out randomly different places (so far only seen close to the front door) and then set off in to the kitchen to plague us by crawling all over the sink etc. We will also buy a lot of storage containers for all our food as this is sensible against the mice too.
The joys of country living!!
They are very persistant, I suppose numbers are on their side.
I read on the internet that they cannot cross talc so we tried it out...
As far as we can tell there are quite a few living under the doorstep and the plan to allow talc free living is to block up all the holes. It seems that there are also a number of holes that go right through the wall as they pop out randomly different places (so far only seen close to the front door) and then set off in to the kitchen to plague us by crawling all over the sink etc. We will also buy a lot of storage containers for all our food as this is sensible against the mice too.
The joys of country living!!
Sunday 27 May 2012
Lourdes
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| Lourdes town |
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| Castle above the town |
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| Church |
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| Inside |
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| Something from the film 'The wild wild west"? |
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| Phone to God? |
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| La Grotte |
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| Reminder of the homeland |
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| River, church and pilgrims waiting for the baths |
Happy Birthday Janet!
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| Lovely present from someone. |
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| Doug's duck |
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| About to start eating (sorry didn't get a photo with both looking normal!) |
Some leisure
As Janet is visiting we have taken some time off from (failed) rodent extermination and worrying about the work that needs doing to explore the mountains a bit. We went up to Col d'Aspin and had a picnic and a lovely walk.
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| A kite flew overhead |
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| View from the col |
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| Sheep and coos |
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| Raven? Crow? |
What is this???
Any ideas what this is?
Suggestions have been
Suggestions have been
- Meat grinder
- Tile cutter
Poppy dog
This is Poppy.
She was born in April and will be joining 'project farm' in July. She is (a non pedigree) German Pointer.
She was born in April and will be joining 'project farm' in July. She is (a non pedigree) German Pointer.
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| Tiny Poppy |
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| Tiny Poppy |
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| Bigger Poppy |
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| Mum |
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| Dad |
Saturday 26 May 2012
... and how do you feeeeel about that?
I have written a lot about what we have been doing, but not much about what we have been feeling. It is easy to write chirpy blogs about issues when they are resolved and you are feeling positive, but much harder to sit down and find the words when you are in the middle of the problem or feeling down.
It is easy to imagine that we are on a permanent holiday because we are not 'working' in a paid job and that it is all chilled wine and cheese but let me assure you this is not the case!
Shortly after we got here there was a period where I felt quite scared and down because I feared we had taken on too much. Neither of us have actual practical skills - although you can see from the pig house that we are practical and able to work it out - or have done DIY much beyond a bit of painting and the house has so much wrong with it that is actually dangerous. Plus there are a number of pests (mice, bats, woodworm, ticks, ants) that don't bother one in London and at the moment the house has too many gaps and holes so it is hard to get them under control. On top of this there was dirt and grot EVERYWHERE and we were washing from a bucket and never felt clean (still are but maybe I am used to it a bit now - but can only cope with it in the summer, no way in the winter)
Things seem more possible now (although there are still stressful moments particularly if we get tired) since Marcus (our estate agent) helped us out with a number of trades people and advice as well as introducing us to some local English people. Although the dream isn't to be only part of an expat community, our French isn't good enough yet to be able to socialise much with locals plus it is nice to speak to other people who have taken on something similar to us and survived (french people seem less keen on burdening themselves with a wreck and often favour modern houses and clearly think the we are MAD - maybe they have a point...)
Not meant to be a moan, just an insight in to what is going on. There are fantastic things too and we always knew it would be difficult.
It is easy to imagine that we are on a permanent holiday because we are not 'working' in a paid job and that it is all chilled wine and cheese but let me assure you this is not the case!
Shortly after we got here there was a period where I felt quite scared and down because I feared we had taken on too much. Neither of us have actual practical skills - although you can see from the pig house that we are practical and able to work it out - or have done DIY much beyond a bit of painting and the house has so much wrong with it that is actually dangerous. Plus there are a number of pests (mice, bats, woodworm, ticks, ants) that don't bother one in London and at the moment the house has too many gaps and holes so it is hard to get them under control. On top of this there was dirt and grot EVERYWHERE and we were washing from a bucket and never felt clean (still are but maybe I am used to it a bit now - but can only cope with it in the summer, no way in the winter)
Things seem more possible now (although there are still stressful moments particularly if we get tired) since Marcus (our estate agent) helped us out with a number of trades people and advice as well as introducing us to some local English people. Although the dream isn't to be only part of an expat community, our French isn't good enough yet to be able to socialise much with locals plus it is nice to speak to other people who have taken on something similar to us and survived (french people seem less keen on burdening themselves with a wreck and often favour modern houses and clearly think the we are MAD - maybe they have a point...)
Not meant to be a moan, just an insight in to what is going on. There are fantastic things too and we always knew it would be difficult.
The electrics
Having sorted out the water as much as possible for now we started to think about what other work we need to do immediately. The electrics are a bit scary with some bare wires hanging out in places and a supply that dims when the water pump (and slightly less drastically the fridge and other electrical items)
We had two electricians round, one wasn't keen to work with us living in the place plus he was worried how we were going to communicate (what an insult to our SUPER french). The other seemed to grasp immediatly what we wanted
Basically this is safety in the electrics we have which includes getting the wires off the floor upstairs so we can start work getting insulation and new floor in without electricuting ourselves or ending up with no power downstairs.
Apparently there is no earth in the house or barn and the feeble rusty little wires that bring in the supply to the house could melt through at any moment (probably burning the house down). It is an exciting on the edge of your seat place to live!
The wiring in the barn is a bit ropey looking too and every time we have to turn the pump off (was frequent during the plumbing issues) or the electric fence we feel we are putting our life at risk.
V thick rubber soles needed.
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| Nice join of wires |
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| Not sure if that top bit is live. Don't like to touch it to see. |
We had two electricians round, one wasn't keen to work with us living in the place plus he was worried how we were going to communicate (what an insult to our SUPER french). The other seemed to grasp immediatly what we wanted
Basically this is safety in the electrics we have which includes getting the wires off the floor upstairs so we can start work getting insulation and new floor in without electricuting ourselves or ending up with no power downstairs.
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| Wiring on floor upstairs goes to lights etc downstairs (white is talc to see where mice are running) |
Apparently there is no earth in the house or barn and the feeble rusty little wires that bring in the supply to the house could melt through at any moment (probably burning the house down). It is an exciting on the edge of your seat place to live!
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| The supply in to the house. Only a bit rusty. Electrician advises only one appliance running at once. |
V thick rubber soles needed.
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| Looks more scary in real life |
What else have we been doing?
Plumbing and pigs have taken up the biggest chunks of time but we have had plenty of other stuff to do.
Including:
Including:
- Spending lots of time talking to orange and to Marcus (our helpful estate agent) trying to get phone and internet. We didn't believe it was going to be possible for a long time. But thankfully it is all sorted now and there is even a TV decoder that we are about to pick up too.
- Paper work (registering change of address for car, starting to register for health care, changing the insurance on the house to primary residence)
- Maintenance and cleaning (scything the drive and garden, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning - although you might not know it to look at the place)
- Delivery of uk stuff
- Speaking with an accountant to try to get to grips with tax and healthcare rules
- Meeting people (one of the neighbors came round to say hi and we have met a number of other British people who live quite close - obviously long term plan is to learn French but nice at the mo to have people to talk to who have done something similar to us)
- Pest and rodent control (not actually going that well as the mice won't get in to the traps or move out and ants keep invading. There were bats in the roof when we bought the place but they seem to have moved out.)
- Exploring (we have been for a couple of walks and various drives around the local area. Probably our area of expertise is DIY shops that don't sell the right wood for pig houses but we are working on expanding this to more useful things)
- Shopping (we have bought an ice cream maker as it would obviously be impossible to live here without)
- Baking (cooking cakes in the bread maker - haven't tried it before and seems to work well, technically there is an oven on the gas cooker but looking at it it is more like a grill)
- Building some shelves in the kitchen to make it habitable in the mean time.
Friday 25 May 2012
Les Meubles
We weren't exactly ready as there is nowhere for a lot of it to go, but we needed some things like our bed and sofa and scythes. Kitchen stuff and clothes we were ok for as we brought some from Chamonix but we couldn't pick and chose what was delivered - so the whole lot arrived.
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| Hope box pile doesn't collapse |
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| Glad to see the bed. It is huge and others are small |
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| It seems bigger in this room than Camden. It will have a huge room to live in eventually (10 years!!) |
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| The v friendly efficient removal men |
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| No this isn't where it lives |
Thursday 24 May 2012
Barranède first beer
We have bought some all grain kits but haven't got the cleanliness or time required to make them yet so we put on a concentrate kit initially to get us going.
The pigglies
We went and collected the pigglies a week after we got here after working night and day to build their home. A lot of the effort involved was finding suitable tools and wood. We visited a lot of DIY shops and in the end the wood was not exactly what we wanted and rather more expensive. We still need to find where to buy the right wood really as we are going to need plenty more for our house.
They traveled in a cardboard box in the car and seemed to sleep happily
This picture cannot show the crazed squealing they make while being carried. Then as soon as they are put down they carry on quite happily as if nothing happened. They are chunky little b*****ggers even now so it was pretty difficult carrying them while they squealed and struggled.
While first one was being rehomed the other one went for a little walk and had to be recaptured. He wasn't interested in food (the usual way to persuade them to do what you want, just in digging.
Eventually we got them both in to their new home and they seemed very happy there. The digging seen here was done in about the first half an hour. They are keen diggers and seem to love it.
The pigs don't have names as they are going to be pork and bacon - it is hard not to be attached as they are very appealing, but we keep their purpose in mind all the time as we cannot afford to end up with such expensive pets!
We made a small enclosure with electric fence and found that they had dug this up in a matter of days. Although we knew they were going to dig we didn't expect it to be so fast. We moved them to where the veg patch is going to be and they have been working away there for the last 10 days or so. It is time to move them again soon but not far, just along to the other end of the veg patch.
Moving them was quite funny with both of us running along with buckets of feed and shouting 'piggly piggly piggly' and rattling the bucket madly when one of them wizzed off the wrong way. We had trouble getting the boy pig (he is the digging ring leader) out of the patch Doug has dug for potatoes. We didn't get photos as we were too busy herding. Moving the house was also fun as it was up quite a steep slope and it is quite heavy. The solution we came up with worked but was quite tricky to keep balanced and on track.
They traveled in a cardboard box in the car and seemed to sleep happily
While first one was being rehomed the other one went for a little walk and had to be recaptured. He wasn't interested in food (the usual way to persuade them to do what you want, just in digging.
Eventually we got them both in to their new home and they seemed very happy there. The digging seen here was done in about the first half an hour. They are keen diggers and seem to love it.
The pigs don't have names as they are going to be pork and bacon - it is hard not to be attached as they are very appealing, but we keep their purpose in mind all the time as we cannot afford to end up with such expensive pets!
We made a small enclosure with electric fence and found that they had dug this up in a matter of days. Although we knew they were going to dig we didn't expect it to be so fast. We moved them to where the veg patch is going to be and they have been working away there for the last 10 days or so. It is time to move them again soon but not far, just along to the other end of the veg patch.
Moving them was quite funny with both of us running along with buckets of feed and shouting 'piggly piggly piggly' and rattling the bucket madly when one of them wizzed off the wrong way. We had trouble getting the boy pig (he is the digging ring leader) out of the patch Doug has dug for potatoes. We didn't get photos as we were too busy herding. Moving the house was also fun as it was up quite a steep slope and it is quite heavy. The solution we came up with worked but was quite tricky to keep balanced and on track.
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