Sloes

We didn't think they grew around here. About a month ago Doug spotted some up near Payolle. They were still green then, so we decided to return later in the year. We were a bit concerned that people would get there before us if we left it to long. We went back with Rob and Sarah and it turns out we need not have worried, there were MILLIONS of them. The locals obviously haven't heard of sloe gin.

Nicely loaded bushes

Nice fat sloes

Martha and sloes

Rob hiding in the sloe bushes

Shortcut to mushrooms

The weather forecast before the Geesons arrived was rain rain rain and more rain. Luckly the forecast was wrong and it was lovely weather when they arrived.

 We went for a walk round the land and found some more parasol mushrooms

 Which we had cooked in egg and semolina and in soup

 We looked for other edible mushrooms (cep are in season apparently)

 We met some old french guys collecting parasol mushrooms too (obviously this is not a picture of them). They gave us a poly bag to carry our haul in. Perhaps because they felt guilty that they were STEALING our mushrooms off OUR land or maybe they were just taking a short cut and got lost and were very helpful nice people.

First snow on the Midi!

It was pouring in rain this morning when I took the dog out, and there had been 10mm of rain overnight.
When it cleared slightly we could see that it had snowed on the Pic du Midi.
Skiing here we come!

It reminds us we had better do something about insulating the pump and where the water comes in to the house before we get frost down here. Although it is over 2000m higher than here.
By evening the weather was much nicer but still a hint of snow was left. The temperature at the house was 13 degrees when this photo was taken. Much colder suddenly than it has been.

Brill still!

Or maybe Brill again. FINALLY redcoon have got round to replacing the lawn mower that was delivered with a missing screw neatly 2 months ago. The process of getting it replaced has been ridiculous. I can't be bothered to go in to it but I would not advise buying anything from them.

This mower is so much better than the Bosch that I have been struggling with for the past couple of months which gets grass tangled round its wheels all the time as well as stopping suddenly and punching you in the stomach. The first cut was a bit tiring as the grass had got too long but it would have been nearly impossible with the Bosch and now as long as we keep it under control it will be much easier. Might even be able to keep some of the grass on the drive and around the house under control with it.

Brill lawn

Fruits of Autumn

We have picked quite a few apples (or rescued as windfalls). A lot have little holes where bugs have nibbled them, so the best way to preseve seems to be to make apple sauce or apple crumble for the freezer.

 The apple device is very useful for preparing them quickly

We have had a lot of parasol mushrooms too. And there are many more coming out. I made some soup yesterday and we will try to get round to freezing some of that too.

The tomato harvest hasn't been very impressive yet. They fell over yesterday and knocked some of the chillies off too.

The garden is producing sweetcorn and beans which are both very good. I may need to make bean soup shortly too and freeze that as the beans are being pretty enthusiastic. I don't think there will be enough sweetcorn to have any left over. Next year we must grow a lot more and freeze some.

Amazing apple peeler, slicer, corer

Stick apple on spikes

Wind handle

Voila, no peel, no core and sliced

Remove core and feed to pigs with the peel

Princess Prescilla Pashley

I have finally got round to unpacking my bike. The wheels had been taken off and the handlebars turned sideways for transport. It took a bit of fiddling to get the hub gears and brakes connected up but all seems good now.

She is a Pashley Britannia which is basically the same as a Pashley Princess hence the name.

It is a 'dutch bike' which refers to the style not where it is made. I presume because they are good on the flat!
It has 5 gears (they are internal hub gears) and the lowest one is not very low when faced with the hills around here. I am thinking about changing the front chainset for a smaller one which will lower all 5 gears. This should be ok I think because I am not that keen on going fast, so 5th hardly every gets used anyway as it is.

I am a bit confused though how much change to make. My impression is that about 10% change in the number of teeth (I need to go and count them) would be good. I will need a new chain also. Have to get round to going to the bike shop in town.

We have a dream of being able to cycle with Poppy running alongside as we have seen a number of people round here doing. At the moment when faced with anything with wheels (wheelbarrow, lawn mower, bikes - not cars fortunately) she alternates between running along in front barking, and biting whatever bit she can get her teeth one - ones foot typically in the case of a bike. Dream might be fulfilled in about 10 years time I think.

Lovely weather

We feel we had a very productive week this week and progressed a few things around getting work done on the house (not actually DONE any work you understand but... any moment we will...). The weather has been lovely too, so we had fairly relaxing weekend and had a few home brews (and home made limoncello) to celebrate a good week.

Dog celebrating a productive week

Limoncello in the sun (and chinese nibbles)

The view is lovely in the sunny weather

Doug and dog enjoying well deserved rest

Good sunset

Bottling the all grain beer

We brewed our first batch of all grain a few weeks ago. There were a few slightly suboptimal things in the process. We ended up with a bit more cloud from the grain than ideal as we had some issues draining the wort off the grain (plus the grain crusher was a bit temperamental and didn't give a very even crack) and we had some hiccups transferring it from our brew pan in to the fermenting vessel. We bottled it yesterday, it is too soon to say how it is going to come out as beer tastes very flat and dry before the extra sugar makes the fizz in the bottle but we had some slight worries about 'off tastes'. We did also think it looked a bit cloudier that this stage than normal. We will report back in a week or two when they have finished bottle conditioning and we can try one.

Ready to transfer from fermenter to bottling vessel

 Having learnt from our first all grain brew we have ordered a new brew kettle with a false bottom and a tap which should hopefully smooth the process out a bit by allowing us to extract the liquid (wort) from the grain more easily and with less grain dust for a clearer beer. Unfortunately they sent the wrong size so it has to be returned and exchanged for the correct one before we can try it. Grrrrrrr.
We also bought a new capper which has both a 26mm and 29mm head so we can now put caps on to champagne (and fizzy wine) bottles. V exciting and a shame we didn't know this existed when we were living our champagne lifestyle in London. Boo hoo for all the bottles we threw out!!

The new capper with champagne bottle

Vin Sauvage (fizzy wine) bottles with beer in

New chickens

We went to collect four new chickens but came away with only two as the other two had escaped. We will probably be able to pick them up at some other time as he expects them not to have gone far. These two replace the two cockerals we returned so we are up to five chickens again. However still only one who is laying.
We have been having fun the past few nights catching the new two who insist on roosting on top of the woodpile and wedging them back in the coop. You would think they might have got the hang of it now. They are quite funny as they deactivate reasonably thoroughly as soon as the sun sets. They make a tiny bit of squawking and flapping when picked up but the other one just sits there while we deal with the first.

New chicken emerging from hedge after first night there

It is interesting that the two new ones are noticably less developed than the three we have despite being born - or rather hatched I suppose - in the same place at the same time. We have been feeding ours on 'pondeuse' feed ie layers feed and some wheat and the guy we got them off feeds his wheat. We have noticed that the french tend to feed their animals prepared feed less, for example the sheep we got from a brit had been fed on formulated sheep feed but the ones we got from a french guy got barley when they were in need of a little extra in the winter.

New chicken no red head

There is probably something like a week or more development from having no red in the head to the stage the chickens who have been with us longer have got too. We keep expecting the other two to start laying but it is still only big chicken. Pretty sure the other two aren't going to suddenly decide they are cockerals though.

Old chickens with red heads

Walk close to home

It may look from recent blog entries like we have been doing not much apart from but cooking and walking, but we feel to have had a very productive week. We have got several quotes lined up as well as some actual dates for starting some work, moved a lot of boxes upstairs and sorted out registering the animals which has been hanging over us for some time. So perhaps we should have been doing work on the house, but the nice coolish and sunny weather was too much to resist so we went for a walk.

We have explored a bit around the house and had some walks in the woods between us and Bagnère de Bigorre. We had been told that there is a way of walking on good tracks from here to the hills we see opposite us behind Labassère (which is the village with the church you might have noticed in pictures of our view). As a start to exploring this we walked to the top of our land and then through the neighbors fields on to a marked track and headed up the valley. We ended up walking a loop through the woods and countryside above the house then to a place called Labassère Debat (which is probably the closest village to us but is no more than a small collection of houses) and back down the (very quiet) road to our house.

Cheptel and numagrit numbers

There are various EU rules about animals being registered and their locations known to help prevent outbreaks of disease and to make the handling easier. Each country has it's own interpretation and implementation of these rules. You can't take an animal to the abatoir if it is not properly registered.

We thought we were stuck in a loop of being unable to get the relevant paperwork done because we needed to get two numbers and it seemed that to get a cheptel number you needed a numagrit and to get a numagrit you needed a cheptel number aaaaargh. Obviously they are administered by separate departments.
We went on a day trip to Tarbes to try to sort this out. Frankly we didn't expect to get it done in a day but felt that it would be simpler to go and speak in person and find out what we needed to do. In the event it was much simpler than expected and something we expected would take months was all done in a day. We have found that in quite a few cases people are very helpful face to face but it is hard to get a proper response on the phone or via email (I think this is the system rather than our language ability although that also makes it easier for us to do things in person).

So now we are just waiting for the ear tags for the sheep to arrive and we should be compliant with all the rules.
We need to visit the abatoir to make sure we have done everything they need to be able to process the pigs but we believe we shoudl now be able to take the pigs there when we are ready.

Getting work on the house moving

We still haven't actually DONE anything on the house beyond getting the electrics de-deathtrapped (and adding some kitchen appliances but that isn't really work on the house as such)
We recently had another couple of people in to do quotes for things.

The first is a digger/landscaper man who is going to build a platform for the new water tank at the spring. I think I have mentioned this before. The existing tank is only 150l which is not really big enough and also there is nothing to stop us running the tank dry which will damage the pump. The new tank has a switch in it which turns the pump off when the water drops below a certain level. Plus it is much larger at 750l

The same guy is going to do us a quote for widening the corner on the drive (at the moment we cannot make it round in one and there are various delivery people etc who also have issues and we are concerned what it is going to be like in winter) as well as repairing another part of the driveway. He is also going to return with the stone mason and they are going to do a quote for levelling the floor in the outdoor kitchen and laying concrete there as well as removing the rather broken up concrete at the front of the house and replacing it and perhaps doing something about the barn.

The second guy is going to make some metal bands to strengthen a few of the roof beams (recommended by the carpenter) as well as do a quote for doing the insulation.

A while ago we got a quote for removing the chimney breast in the kitchen because it is falling down the weather getting a bit colder has prompted us to get the kitchen/living room cleared out a bit so we can have this work done.

Before box removal (chimney on right)

After box removal

Boxes now live upstairs

Most the boxes were full of records, there were also some books, some CDs and a fish tank. They don't look much in the photos but it was mighty hard work humping them all up the stairs.

We have now arranged with the mason to do the work towards the end of October. We need to arrange someone to also fit a new chimney to the stove as the one we have isn't very complient with any safety rules and is probably only held up by the chimney.
 

Freezer Crumble Recipe

These are fantastic for quick and easy pudding. We are making quite a few with apples so we can easily have apple things when they are no longer on the trees. We have a number of apple trees, none of them are great and the sheep have killed a few by eating the bark. We plan on planting more next year.

The idea is to make the crumble in a freezer proof and oven proof container with some kind of top to keep them safe. I use the smallest one of these parfait jars (and sometimes the next size up) as all the supermarkets and various other shops here sell them. You want something with a wide mouth.

The topping is oat crumble see here. I am going to try some with normal crumble as well. The oat works well though as it is quite flaky and dry and doesn't go soggy or hard with freezing and then reheating.

You could use any fruit filling but for these I used apples.

Peel and core then chop finely 600g of apples
Stew them in a pan with some lemon and water until they are mushy but not pureed (unless you want them like that) then add some sugar to taste and stir until disolved.
Meanwhile make the oat crumble using 200g of oats (100g butter and sugar)
Fill the jars about 1/2 full then fill up with the crumble. Don't pack the crumble down and it should not go above the level of the top of the jar.
Put the lids on and leave to cool and then put in the freezer.

Take them out some hours before you need them to let them thaw and cook for about 15 or 20 mins (or longer if bigger) at 180C, or sometimes I put them straight in to a very cool oven (100C) until they are thawed then cook them for about 15 mins at 180C.

Gingerbeer Recipes

Here are two ginger beer recipes. We prefer the vinegar one (you don't taste the vinegar at all it is part of some cunning chemical reaction rather than flavoring directly - this recipe is very similar to the one we use for elderflower champagne)

Number 1
1 lemon
2 cloves
50g ginger
2.5l water (or there abouts)
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
200g sugar
1/2 tsp bread yeast

Number 2
1 lemon
2 cloves
50g ginger
2.5l water (or there abouts)
2 teaspoon cream of tartar
200g sugar
1/2 tsp bread yeast

For both put all the ingredients in to a pan or other container of sufficient size. Juice the lemon then bung in the whole lot, juice, rind, pips etc. I use the bottles I am going to put it in to measure out the water so it may be a bit more or less than in the recipe depending on bottle size.
Stir well and leave for 24 hours stirring occasionally if you remember to make sure the sugar is all disolved.

Strain in to bottles through a sieve (a funnel is helpful here - put the sieve on the funnel and mess is reduced). I would strongly recommend using screw top bottles not swing top. Depending how long you leave it it can be quite enthusiastic when opened. We had an 'incident' where the ceiling was very throughtly covered in ginger beer. I suspect bits are still on the ceiling in our old flat in Camden. We use bottles from fizzy water and just buy the cheapest water to get them (and we make nice sangria with it) and when they are worn out do the same again. Looks nicer in glass though...

If you want it more gingery you can either add more ginger or probably better pour boiling water over the ginger and cloves then leave overnight to cool before adding the other ingredients and proceed as before.

It should be ready in about 3 days or more or less depending on temperature. If you use plastic bottles you can squeeze the bottle and when it feels hard it is ready.

Walk to The Lac Bleu

The walk in words
We have been having some lovely weather here. It is sunny, but not as hot as it was (there are some rainy days inbetween the sunny days but let's ignore them).
We went for a beautiful walk to the Lac Bleu (there must be hundreds of lakes in the mountains called this).
It is probably the longest walk we have had since coming here taking about 6 hours for the round trip (including an hour for lunch by the lake). The climb is pretty sustained with no real flat bits. You start off with a climb through the woods, a slightly gentler bit as you come out the woods and then gets steeper and steeper until you come out to a beautiful blue lake at the top.
Doug went for a swim in the lake, we couldn't persuade Poppy that she is designed to swim with webbed paws. Doug says it was most pleasant, rather like swimming in an ice cube. Poppy went a bit mad when Doug dived in and started doing her funny puppy bark, perhaps trying to intimidate the lake that had eaten her great leader. She was very excited about paddling around but would not go out of her depth. She also managed to try to breathe underwater and doesn't seem to know that she doesn't need swimming lessons or safety floats to get her started.
We took cheese and bread with us. The bread was lovely fresh baked and of course tasted even better than usual after a stiff climb.
On the way down there was a giant flock of sheep (hundreds of them probably) being herded down the path behind us. They must have made it across the little hanging bridge somehow although we didn't see it and ended up in a field at the bottom.  We kept moving as we didn't want to be added to the flock and sent to the abatoir!!

The walk in pictures

Setting off

Walking up through the woods

Coming out the top of the woods

Just out the woods

On the path

Happy puppy off the lead

Running around

Horses

Pretty waterfall

View back down

View up (lake is over the lowest point)

View to the top (just by the tiny white waterfall in middle)

There were quite a few waterfalls

Bridge

Doug on bridge (Poppy wasn't keen to cross)

Waterfall near the top

Approaching the top (tired now!!)

First view of the lake

Swim! She didn't quite managed it but loves splashing around

The lake

Admiring the view

Doug and Poppy by Lac Bleu

Poppy looking regal (not the mad puppy she is)

Lunch and GPS...

... while standing in the lake

Madman going for a swim - was a bit cold

Poppy shocked anyone would chose to swim

Setting off back down

Sign near the lake

View of the path back down

Some sheep followed us down

Doug and Poppy ahead

Back over the bridge. Poppy ok this time

Looking back up where we were (lowest point of skyline)

Poppy is tired, so are we!

Groovy cow on the road back down