Tour de France in La Mongie

The Tour de France passed right outside our flat in La Mongie, so it seemed it would be madness not to go and watch. 

A lot of people without flats up there moved in temporary. This is normally a car park along side the road

The camper vans parked all along the road right up to the Col du Tourmelet

I was impressed that the supermarket planned ahead and had a stall outside selling bread in the morning.

Waiting for the cyclists to arrive. This is on the bank just outside the flat

Some friends cycled up to watch it with us

Lots of helicoptors

The cyclists. It was good as we could see when they were near on the TV and rush out to see them

An eclipse of the moon rounded of the day nicely

Sweetcorn mystery

There is something weird going on with the sweetcorn! We have planted two beds. One at the front and one at the back of the plot. The sweetcorn are the same from the same packet in the two. BUT they get smaller as they go further back in the plot!

Last year we only had them at the back and they were all stunted with funny little corn on them. The trees do shade the back of the plot - both from the sun and the rain. We need to trim them back!

Other things seem to do ok in the more shady and less wet area.

Separating wax from honey comb

Someone very kindly gave me some honeycomb wax (ie with the honey already removed). They said they weren’t going to find time to process it in to wax. Having now tried it, I am not surprised!
It was quite time consuming and effortful - though if I did it again it would be a little less so as I learn't various things. The hardest part was getting the wax off everything afterwards - including off my toes where molten wax was not very pleasant!

Put the wax in to water in a large pan

Heat until the wax melts. It doesn't look like you will EVER be able to clean it in to something usable

Strain the wax through multiple layers of cheese cloth. I used some fly mesh first and the holes let too much of the grot through.

Cleaning the pans and other utensils was a bit of a trial! Next time (haha) I would put the wax in to multiple layers of cheese cloth and then put it in to the water and heat it up - that way there would only be need to use 1 pan (I used two because I had to pour from one pan to the other through the cheese cloth). There would also be less chance of pouring any of the molten wax on yourself (PAINFUL!)

You can see it is still quite dirty as this is after straining through the fly mesh. Melted it with water again and strained it through several layers of cheese cloth after this and it came out much cleaner.

Once finished I made some wax cream to treat a new chopping board with. cleaning the wax was a lot of effort, but always nice to have home made things, they seem extra special. Doug made the board from a left over piece of work surface.

Not sure what to do with the rest. Perhaps candles will be nice, or maybe I will keep it around to make wax for the chopping boards and we will keep them in lovely condition!

Homemade chopping board wax

40g wax
105g mineral oil (food grade)
Few drops of lemon essense or other essential oil

Put the wax in a jam jar with 30g of mineral oil.
Put the jar in to a pan with water coming about half way up the sides (you don’t want it floating)
Heat the water until the wax melts.
Add the rest of the oil and stir to mix.
Put the essential oil in the jar, stir, and leave to set.

Rub on the the chopping board (or wooden spoon etc) with a soft cloth.

This is just a tiny batch made with a scrap piece of wax from cleaning the pans. It was plenty to do the boards with though.

Three legged chicken!

 Ok, not really ;)

Sambuca - snake killer

Only a tiny snake... looks like a western whip hatchling.

I am not overly keen on snakes around the house, so well done 'Buca.

Mouth Watering Chicken Recipe

I mainly followed this recipe

I poached the chicken until it was 70C inside

I used ingredients from Sous Chef.

The sauce was
4 tbsp chilli oil
3 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp wine
2 tbsp sesame oil

Next time I would use less chilli oil, or more likely a less spicy one as it was a tiny bit too hot...

 I was inspired to make this by a Chinese restaurant we visited in Paris. I have also had similar in London. It is very very good.

Bedside cabinets 'up-cycle'

We have been struggling on without bedside tables since we moved in to the new bedroom - NIGHTMARE, where was Doug's Sunday morning cup of tea going to go??

The poor things were quite tired from a hard life in Camden, then on top of that damp and mould in the old bedroom hadn't helped. They couldn't move in to our lovely new room until sorted out.

The pencil markings are so I could line up the pattern on the different drawers.

Much better! They are the same colour as the paint on the door and the white is on all the other woodwork.

I made the coasters on top from some roof slates.

Taj Mahal Restaurant in Tarbes

This restaurant is about 30 mins away. They don't deliver to where we are unfortunately, but really nice Indian food and they do do take away.

Potato Scones Recipe

350g floury potatoes
90g flour
45 g butter
Salt

Peel and cook the poptatoes (or cook than peel)
Mash the potatoes and add the butter and salt
Stir in the flour and need gently
Roll out to 1 or 2 circles depending on size of the frying pan.
Cut the circle in to quaerters.

Cook in a lightly buttered hot frying pan or on a griddle until browned. The frying pan doesn’t need to be very hot else the outside will burn before the middle is warm.
You can reheat in the oven.

Happy Bastille Day!

We thought there might be some fireworks up in La Mongie, but there weren't. However it was a very nice day regardless.

We walked the dog on the way up there

I found my groovy 5 finger shoes while unpacking stuff in to the bedroom. Perfect for paddling!

Moooooo

We had a apero of beer and saucisson in La Mongie

... before returning to the flat to cook a giant piece of beef on a tiny BBQ.

The view (from the flat)

Tired dog after walking, admiring the view