Unpacking Kitchen Stuff

Much of the stuff out of the kitchen in Camden has been sitting in boxes under the stairs since we arrived here 7 and a half years ago... we used the stuff that had been in Chamonix and various other bits and pieces. Even when we moved through in to the renovated room we didn't really need more stuff.
But in equipping the Bagnères flat, it was finally time to unpack it. It has been nice to find some things we forgot we even had, but are very fond of.

Jug and some glasses

Hovis loaf tins. Yes maybe not more useful than a normal one, but I love it anyway

Stripes plates and bowls from Scandium

Another jug

Yet another jug! This is the Gluggle Jug. It makes a glug glug noise when you pour. We seem to have a lot of jugs... 

...and tea pots. This is a moroccan teapot we got on holiday there.

Geraniums

We are not very good at keeping plants in pots alive as the poor things alternate between too wet and too dry. Generally geraniums seem to survive our tender care, but these ones went all yellow. Advice from the all knowing internet told me that they were getting TOO much sun. I thought that wasn't possible for a geranium, but there you have it. I put them in a position where they get shade part of the day and they are much less yellow and are happier looking.

Poo removal (at last!)

We have been having ongoing issues with our septic tank leaking and smelling, but haven't been able to persuade someone with a poo sucking lorry to come up the drive to sort it out.
I finally found someone who has a tank on the back of a landcover who was able to come up. He pumped maybe 1.5 cubic meters of liquid and 1 of solids out of the tank.
Eeeeew :) but a fact of life living here!
He said the tank was healthy and the problem was the filter was blocked and so was the soak away. Having sucked everything out of the tank, he rinsed off the stone filter and hosed out the soaraway and says we are all good for 5-10 years...

That plastic things goes inside the tank and is full of rocks which act as a filter, so that what flows in to the soak is liquid without solids. Nice! You don't have to deal with this sort of thing in London! The fat bergs etc are safely located far from ones apartment :)

Bee progress

One of the hives is still quite weak. We decided that it is the queens fault and decided to replace her by killing her and letting the bees replace her. We set about doing this by putting her in a separate box so we could see if they correctly started making a replacement. Then... we decided to ask some advice on the all knowing internet and the internet said 'nnoooooooo stooooop, that queen is ok' so we put her back in with her bees and hope they take her back ok!

We are feeding them a lot to help them build up ready for winter.

It is all a very good learning experience and we feel great about it as a kind gift has allowed us to have the money set aside for a new swarm in the spring if we fail to nurse these ones through. If all is good we will buy a honey extractor instead... so interesting and good learning whichever way it goes.

Sardines and home grown tomato in the Roccbox

The roccbox is good for things other than pizza!

It is nice to cook and eat outside with the lovely view from the outdoors kitchen

Duck!

This is one of the ducklings that came with Olga and Elvis. She is grown up now and has started laying (maybe a month ago) but not showing any signs of sitting on her eggs. A chicken is sitting on them at the moment and giving it a go. Her mum is sitting on eggs but the chickens keep shifting her so not sure how it will work out, I can't persuade her to do it somewhere else. Annoying!

Autumn must be here!

It feels hot and summery, but the mushrooms have started and brambles are out

Field mushrooms from La Mongie

Cow family watched us pick mushrooms

Some chanterelle from our land. Most of these are definitely chanterelle and we ate them. Doug found a few that were a slightly different colour and they just looked a bit different, so we didn't eat them just in case they were false chanterelle - not deadly but didn't fancy the possible hallucinations.

Cooked with mutton chops and beans from the garden (and medlar jelly)

This is a great year for brambles, they are much bigger and more juicy than normal

Tillandsia (air plants)

Our design concept for the apartment in Bagnere was 'mountain flowers' so we wanted to have some plants, but they needed to be quite hardy and not mind somewhat irregular care and watering. We are giving air plants a go...
They might flower if we are very lucky!

Here is Poppy modelling a real mountain...

Fête pastoral

Nice day out in the mountains with friends. We spent most of the time having lunch though there were various other things going on line a cow ploughing demo and some remote control bramble eater.

Lots of people (for up in the middle of the mountains)

Lovely view we camp up here sometimes

Dog had fun and got a lot of scraps and leftovers to eat

Some machines that do something!

Lunch!

Water pump dodgy

Back in the day, there used to be lots of whining on the blog about our trials getting water to the house from the source which is 10 meters or so lower.
We have quite a powerful pump at the level of the house as pumps are generally designed to push water out of the water outlet rather than pull water up through the water inlet which is what this one is having to do (before pushing it along to the house).
We would like one day to replace it with a submerged pump in the water tank. But while this one keeps struggling on, it seems profligate to spend money on a new one. Pumps are expensive by the time they have dry run protection, a pressure switch to give you sensible pressure in the house, a water cylinder to protect the pump from constantly running, and have the power to get the water up to the top field.
We have been having issues with air getting in to it somehow, which cases a number of problems. Of course not having water when this happens is a not good, but we also worry about the pump overheating, and it lives below the hay!

We have learnt a lot about pumps while struggling with this one and its very rusty predecessor. Not one of the ambitions we had when moving to France!

This is the pressure switch which goes a bit wonky with symptoms including not turning the pump on, not turning the pump off and making an alarming pffft noise. Initially we thought it was a problem with the switch itself, but now we suspect that air gets in to the system and affects its function, which is mechanical. It didn't like being WD40ed that much and the other lubricant even less - it was only a minor fire that occurred!!

There used to be a cover instead of tape, but it got melted in a dry running incident.

French Driving Licence

I lost my UK licence at the end of last year and now I live in France I cannot replace it in the UK, it has to be in France. Because of BREXIT and lots of people deciding they need a French licence now the system is bogged down and all processing except where the licence has been lost or is about to expire. Initially they sent my application back although I had included a letter saying I had lost my licence, so I returned it to them with a further letter and this time they processed it. I had to have a medical test to keep the qualification for towing and driving heavy vehicles. Very happy to finally have it. Doug obviously already has a French licence as he did his test in France.
Next stop citizenship!

Orchids

We are not great with house plants. They tend to die from either too much water or too little. In Camden we had an orchid in the bathroom that did quite well. I have just bought two baby orchids in the hope that we can keep them alive and eventually get them to flower.
Just at the moment they are in perfect condition as someone who knows what they are doing has been looking after them! The bathroom was an ideal place as it was damp and we never forgot to water them. The shower here is very dark, so they are going to have to live somewhere else. I was thinking the bedroom, but we tend to close the shutters during the day in the summer. Bit dark!
Both are Phalaenopsis which are meant to be relatively easy to care for... we shall see...

Pork on the Pig

Peach pie

It's that time of year again. PEACHES. Some of them are tasty raw, but on the whole they are best in a pie.

It's ready!

Happy to have the Bagnères apartment ready to rent!

The twin room (but can be a double)

Kitchen diner

The double room (but can be a twin too)

Bathroom

The living room. The pictures were painted by Doug's cousin Cathy. The originals were oil paint and then scanned, but not very high resolution so I used an AI program on the internet to enlarge them in a way that worked really well.

It is very exciting to have it ready after some setbacks on the way. The ceiling had to be replaced when the shower upstairs leaked. Ikea made a big old mess of delivering some things and the initial wood for the beds was rubbish so we had to refuse it. All's well that ends well though!

Lifestyle Shot

Cute Poppy Pic

Doug is cute too :)

Peach pie

The peach tree had loads of peaches this year. So many one of the branches snapped!
Some of the peaches are nice for eating, but for some reason they are mostly better cooked. We have had a few peach pies. Yum!
Not the most artistic pie, but tasty.