Tiles and rendering

We went to Leroy Merlin (a DIY MEGA store) in Pau on Saturday to collect the tiles we ordered a couple of weeks ago for the floor in the outdoor kitchen. 

The are called Grey London Stoneware. We didn't chose them because of the name! They are a slightly textured pale grey. We though pale would be good not to pick up too much heat from the sun, and we wanted fairly neutral as there is a lot going on already with the stone and wood. There will be a bit of color in the (small) red tiled work surface.

We are planning on rendering/repointing stonework with white lime, a sample of which is on a slate beside the tiles. A bit of the wall has experimentally got grey lime, to the right of the slate. We are planning that it is quite rustic and rendered with some bits of stone showing through.

Here are the tiles for the red work surface - bit of a while until we are ready for those still! Splashback will be red and white checks.

A fellow flyer

Floor is finished

Well technically not finished as it needs tiling still, but the concreting is finished

Looks AMAZING!

Next thing is reprinting the walls a bit before doing the tiles. We need to go to Leroy Merlin in Pau to get the tiles too - we ordered them a couple of weeks ago.

Mini digger!

We have a mini digger. Doug had to drive it all the way from the road as the lorry that delivered it was huge! We bought it in the UK as delivery was surprisingly reasonable.

Doug has done a bit of ditch digging and scrapping the drive with the plough bit. We also have a jack hammer for it and some different size buckets. We are thinking of buying a flail mower attachment to help keep the sides of the drive under control.

Autumn planted legumes

Last year we planted mange tout and broad beans in the autumn. Both grew better than when we planted in the spring (the broad beans were still not great, but the mange tout did really well)

So last week Doug planted, sugar snaps, peas, mange tout and broad beans. They probably should have gone in a bit earlier, but the weather looks warm for a while (unfortunately when it comes to skiing!), so hopefully they will do ok.

We still have some carrots, beetroot, kale, sprouts and cabbage, but the potager is generally a bit of a mess. Needs work soon to put it to bed for winter.

First drive with Doug the Driver

Well, many years ago we did have a car for a short period,mand Doug did drive on his provisional license in the uk. I don't think either of us enjoyed it much. 

But this time it was awesome. The driving lessons have made his driving much better and I wasn't scared at all! It was really nice being able to look around at the scenery.

We went up to Payolle which is not really far, but a decent drive with plenty of challenges, it gets quite narrow and plenty of bends

Doug is a qualified driver!!

Yay!! Doug has passed his driving test!! In French! It is too exciting!

That is a lot of exclamation marks, but it warrents it. He has worked really really hard at both the theory and practical AND it was all in French. It was so stressful doing the test, that he assured me that if he failed he wasn't going to do it again...

AND just to boast for him a little bit... he got 95%!

Now we just need to get him his red A (for apprentice) and insured on the cars and he is good to go. Watch out other road users!

We bought the car we were trying out by the way

Should we worry?

Remember the new A frames that went in in the spring?

We just noticed a large crack under one of them

You can see it in the shadow just to the right of th cables coming down in the the electricity box. It would seem that the front wall has moved away from the internal wall slightly.

The roofer came to look at it, and says that it is ok and is just settling a bit under the new weight. He and Doug marked it in various ways so we can watch to see if it is getting any worse. 

We are not sure when it appeared as Doug just noticed it the other day. Generally I try not to look at the walls or anything else for that matter as the number of spiders webs and the amount of dust just traumatises me - or the amount of work that whatever it is needs...

Christmas is here apparently

Decorations are up in Canary Wharf and shops keep plauing Christmas carols. Outragous!

Sore feet

Owen's absess is doing well since the vet drained it. He was walking normally from the day afterwards. We have to be careful to keep it clean though.

The farrier had to cut away more of Daisy's feet while she was here

Now various other animals have sore feet too. 

Mrs Jacob the sheep is limping a bit because one of her feet split. We have trimmed off all the hanging off bits anddisinfected. Hopefully will be fine. A bit our fault as we should have trimmed sooner. She is the back sheep and you can see her holding the leg up.

Perky has had a sore foot for a while, we couldn't find anything wrong. She was growing slower than Pinky as she couldn't move around very well. It is slowly getting better, and she is catching up again.

Poppy split one of her claws. It didn't seem to bad to start with, but then 2 weeks later it wasn't getting better despite us trimming it slightly to try to stop it catching on things (with her whining and crying every time we did). So I took her to the vet. The treatment was a bit drastic (and expensive) as she was given most of a general anaesthetic, enough to paralyse her, but not enough to totally send her to sleep and then the vet cut the top bit off. I then took her home all floppy and sad. It took quite a while for her to recover, she kept trying to get up and walk around then being upset when she just blundered in to things. 

I couldn't get close enough for a good photo as she has the fear of anyone even looking at it, but you can see the inside claw of the left foot (which is on the right of the picture) is all red. That is the inside of her claw. Gross!

Concrete!

When I got back last night, the first thing I saw was the light on in the 'bread oven room' which is the storage part of the area under the new roof. I went in, and look what I saw! A lovely concreted floor. A lot of effort went in ti that, but looks good now. Just the bigger outside bit to go!

Another naan bread recipe

300g strong white flour

210ml of warm milk

1.5 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

Mix everything together to make a very soft dough. Kneed for 5 mins in a mixer (or 10 by hand - easier in the mixer)

Leave to rise until doubled in size (an hour or more depending on temperature)

Divide in to 6 pieces. Roll each piece out until quite thin. Shape in to a tear drop.

Heat a drying pan on medium heat and cook each naan on both sides until their are brown spots and all the dough is cooked through.

Serve straight away, or reheat in a warm oven when you want to use them.

Thinking of buying a new car

We are thinking of buying a smaller car that I can drive to Toulouse more economically. Then when Doug passes his test he can drive it for a while before graduating to the truck. In the meantime the truck can stay at home and be driven by people helping with the house to get gravel from the quarry and whatever else is needed.

We are looking at an ex rental fiat panda. It is good because you can hire it to try, and get the hire back if you end up buying it. 

It was good on the mountain roads, and good on the way up to Toulouse. Our drive was a little bit of a challenge, but Doug is going to flatten a part of it during the week so hopefully will be ok too.

Snow!

As I drove in on Thursday, I could see by moonlight that the Pyrénées were quite snowy. It has melted a bit day by day although it is not very warm there has been sun.

Yesterday we went up to the ski area (La Mongie) for a walk and a look. Not quite ready yet! But feeling pretty cold and wintery. More feel overnight apparently.

Poppy has a sore leg

She hurt it last weekend, there was a cut, small but quite deep. If she had left it alone it would have healed fine, but she has licked and licked it until it is a big hole. It isn't serious - yet - but given that the main thing she has to offer is her looks we would like it to heal nicely.

It is quite hard to get bandages to stay on her legs as they just slide down. This is an attempt with a sticky bandage that grips back on to itself.

Hopefully it can stay on long enough to let it start healing. Not likely, but we shall see!

Flour tortillas

I had decided to have fajitas for dinner but then realised we didn't have the tortillas I thought we did, so I made some. On the whole bought are much easier and these ones were slightly too thick and some had been fried too much so they weren't as floppy as they should be. But the good ones were good.

380g flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp salt

80ml veg oil

240ml warm water

Knead everything together for about 5 mins (or more by hand). Easiest in a kitchen aid or similar as the dough is quite wet. 

Divide in to 8 pieces and roll each out to about the size of a dinner plate. Heat a large sauce pan on a medium heat and fry each one for a few minutes aside until there are brown (but not black!) spots.

Wrap in foil and reheat when ready. Can be frozen.

I read somewhere the idea of using them as a pizza base. Fry them as above and then spread with tomato, cheese and topping and cook in the oven for 5 mins. Sounds interesting, will give it a go sometime.

Owen has an absess

Poor Owen. Yesterday, when Doug went down to feed the horses and do their feet, he found him unable to walk and just standing pinned in one spot because one of his feet was very sore. When the farrier was here last time, she said she thought he might have an absess developing. An absess is where there is an infection behind the hoof wall, pus builds up and it can't get out because of the strength of the hoof wall. So pressure builds up and up and causes the poor horse a lot of pain.

The best thing to do is to get a farrier or vet to delve in to the hoof with a special knife and release the pressure. This can make a bit of a mess of the hoof wall or sole depending where it is, but should relieve the pain for the horse. 

So we called the farrier yesterday and she came and hacked Owens hoof up this afternoon. He should feel a lot better in a couple of days. We need to keep a close eye now in case the infection builds up again, in which case the farrier will come back. She seemed quite worried for him and wants to hear how he is on Monday.

Darn horses and their feet!

Men at work

'

We are hoping to buy a second car this weekend so that the truck can stay here during the week and be used to get gravel and sand from the quarry and various other useful things.

Work has progressed well on the outdoor kitchen. Despite the weather being much less nice than it has been for some time. It really feels like winter is starting.

The supports holding the chimney breast have gone (and it has stayed up!) and the floor of the inside bit is all dug out and levelled with sand ready for the concrete next week.

In the outside room the bits of the plumbing that will go under the floor, ready for the sink, are in place.

We can't do the gutter piping to take the water away from the house until we do the drain along the back (we are going to get a mini digger for that and other things!). So in the mean time some channels have been dug to try to guide it away a bit in the hope it will soak in to the ground away from the house.

Happy bonfire night

They didn't photograph very well, but there were loads of fireworks, which looked good out of the office window...

End of the nice weather?

The sun was shining this weekend, according to the weather forecast today is the end of the amazing lovely weather we have been having in France since September.

Shame! But we made the most of it and went for a nice walk as well as doing useful things like building rabbit hutches and picking our tarbaise bean and squash harvests. The rabbits won't move in until the grass stops growing, or it gets too wet. These are going to be under shelter in one of the barns. We hope they will be easier to clean than the concrete ones, and also that the hay holder on the left (box on right is a nest box) will minimise wasted hay. We shall see. We still have 18 of this years babies to be klonked. Quite a bit of work there! They are not quite big enough yet.

Change of flights

Easyjet changed their flight times a bit. The one I was taking got earlier, so now I am taking a later flight. Which is good as I get longer at home, but means I don't land until nearly 11pm.

As it takes 2 hours from the flight landing to get to Aidan's, I am now staying at Gatwick at the Yotel on sunday nights. Not very exciting news, but the hotel is quite cool with little pod rooms so here is a photo.

And look!

The following week I was in the room next door - which has a low bunk instead of a high one, they are bunk beds but in seperate pods!

Maybe it appeals to me so much because I slept in a cupboard as a child...

Best shortbread in the world

Aidan was in St.Andrews recently, so he of course got some shortbread from Fisher and Donaldsons. They also do amazing fudge donuts. 

Coincidently (he assures me ) the boiler in the flat there, which must be about 20 years old, decided to conc out moments after his visit!