Trip to Toulouse

We had a super cosmopolitan couple of days - having visited Pau for the first time the day before we went in to Toulouse town centre for the first time the next day after dropping Aidan at the airport. It gave us a break between the drive there and the drive back and gave us the chance to have CURRY. Obviously I can have the in London during the week easily but as there are no restaurants near us Doug has only had home cooked since he was last in London. While good home cooked is just not the same.
Did you know that Toulouse is Frances 4th biggest city? I was surprised by that, not sure why as I have only ever been to the airport there so haven't managed to see much of the place.

Nice little square with groovy shops and cafes

Maybe you can't quite read the sign, it says Foul Art which is a strange thing to call something.

Christmas display in the Town Hall (which is HUGE)

Room covered in art in the Town Hall

Cathederal

Inside

The river

 Nice little bar - maybe you can just make out what is on the mans jumper?

The restaurant - called The Maharaja I would thoroughly recommended it - I expect we will be going back sometime although 4 hour round trip is quite far to drive for a curry! It was just the same as an authentic (ie British!) curry with popadoms, pickles, naan and everything. It was even quite spicy (the French generally seem not to like spicy).

People have told us there is an Indian restaurant in Tarbes (30 mins drive), and we must try it sometime. They report it is a bit weird served with baguette for example!

Trip to the Pau

We went there to see Star Wars : le réveil de la force

It was in English with French subtitles hence why we went so far (about an hours drive to Pau).
We were trying to remember the last time we were at the cinema - before we came to France so more than 4 years anyway. It was in 3D which I have not seen before. We really enjoyed it, both film and the trip overall. Looking forward to going to the cinema again sometime!

We have not been to Pau before, it is much nice than I expected - probably because we actually have been there but only to the outskirts to go to the DIY shop Leroy Merlin. The centre is much more interesting

Wheel with Pyrenees behind

View towards our house

Cathederal

 There was just water down there - but really far down

The Castle

Pyrenees from the castle

The castle after dark - there was a projection story thing on about Henry IV. This is just a static projection on the outside (fleur de lis maybe?)

Then inside they had an amazing surround a projection going on which went through his history and had huge animations to a voice over.

We are looking forward to going again, perhaps for sushi next time as there are several restaurants there...

Boxing Day Picnic

After eating way to much on Christmas Day -

Home grown ham and cheese salad starter

Veg keeping warm on the stove

The goose - really yummy

All together

Christmas pud (not home made this year I am afraid, just not enough time for everything)

- We took advantage of the very unseasonal weather and went for a picnic.

Merry Christmas one and all!

Merry Christmas from Rhoda, Doug and Poppy

It has been dry and sunny for a month, but we still went skiing despite some of the resort being closed. Was beautiful.

Aidan is here for Christmas

We had ham on Christmas Eve - honey and maple syrup glazed. Boiled for about an hour and a half then in the oven for about an hour not very hot with honey and maple syrup mixed with french mustard.

Bacon for breakfast (it was sliced before cooking and quite a lot frozen for later)

Breakfast in the sun. Like summer!

Preparing for Christmas Day

A friend gave us a goose and a duck (Muscovy which are huge!). We picked them up today, and killed and prepared them so that they could hang for a while. The goose we will eat on Christmas Day and the duck will go in the freezer - perhaps we will eat it next week.

Doug klonked them on the head and then I slit their throat to bleed them out. Slight incident when the duck made a break for it, but the dog helped catch him again.

I was tempted for a minute to keep the goose as it was a female and goose eggs would be amazing - plus she was a beautiful animal. But practicality ruled. We don't have the time for more animals, where would she live etc. Maybe in the future we can have geese. They have really stinky slimy poo though...

Goose before plucking

Goose during plucking. The feathers weren't too hard to pull out but the whole thing was quite an effort because of the amount of down. It was like being in a snow storm and took forever to pull them all out.

Finished and gutted. Now going to hang for a couple of days

The duck. He is a muscovy duck which are huge and the only type of duck not related to the mallard apparently.

We had a nightmare plucking the wings, so in the end I just skinned them. I think I will chop them off and make stock before I roast it as they will tend to burn and dry out without skin on. The stock will be useful for making gravy to eat it with.

Mmmmm yum.

Fan for fire

Not super exciting perhaps to normal people but we found it so.
This fan is powered only from the heat of the top of the stove. It moves the air around so that all the heat does not disappear up to the ceiling and therefore here up stairs through the hole above the fire.
The flash froze it but it is a blur to the eye as it whizzes round

Old pylon has gone

ERDF (who manage the hardware for EDF) have finally come and removed the old pylon and filled in the track they dug to get in there. They seem to have dug out the old concrete and everything.

All looks much nicer now with wooden pylon and only one cable neatly wrapped in black

Solar panels

I kind of mentioned it when I was talking about the heating, but the solar hot water panels are now connected up and generating heat. They were installed some time ago but have been covered up until now - and not connected to anything. They have raised the tank (2000 liters) by a few degrees each day it looks like. There were about 4 hours today that it was heating for (it was cloudy in the morning so startd at midday). The tank has been settling down and all coming to an equal temperature so we will see more clearly as time goes on. Of course at the moment we are not using any heat from it.

We hope to get the radiators working for a test run next week.

Free (ok not free - pre paid) heat!

Lots of the windows are fitted

Eventually the outside will be re rendered also which will cover the old bits showing round the edge of the new surround.

The bedroom

These windows in the roof will be replaced tomorrow. They will still be drafty round the sides as there is no insulation yet round the windows or above them. But overall the house envelope (as they call it) is getting more air tight.

Window delivery

He is coming back next week to install.

Firing up the wood burner

The instructions seemed long and complex, but sure it is fine once we have done it a few times. There are a lot of dials and controls. Basically the whole setup isn't very complex, but it looks more so because it is important that water goes in to the tank at a level with similar temperature so that the water stays stratified with hot at the top and cold at the bottom otherwise we would have a large tank of warmish water rather than one which is hot enough at the top to provide water for showers. Then there are a number of pumps and dials for the solar hot water and for the wood burner.
The radiators are connected up basically but not fully yet.
The red tank you can see a bit of is the expansion vessel to cope with the water increasing in volume as it gets hotter. The grey pipes just right of center are the solar hot water going in and hot water coming out. The wood burner is on the left.

Lighting the wood burner

Control panel on the wood burner - tells you whether fans are on, temp of chimney (which is important I guess so that the boiler can control itself to achieve the correct temperatures and air supply to achieve gasification)

The super hot flame roaring down from where the wood is being heated to create wood gas above. The boiler is called a wood gasification boiler because it burns the wood very efficiently by gasifying the wood and then burning that gas

The tank on right is to provide flow if there is a power cut and the system is too hot and needs cooling - as we would have no water pressure at that point as our water is provided by a pump

Double skin chimney out the back