Going to the bar!

Local bars and restaurants have reopened now, post confinement. You are meant to wear a mask when not at your table, but not everyone does. We went out with some friends and had apéro at a couple of bars before having take away pizza at home. Really nice to do something that feels a little like normal life.

Robin and Pratiwi always look cute!

After pizza we had custard tart made by Liz

Possibly drunk people shouldn’t flame things!

Yummy!

We stayed over in the Bagnéres flat, nice to do once in a while, check everything works and is comfortable

Poppy thinks the balcony should be more see through

Bastard flies

It is only June and there are a lot of flies (and have been since March!), even the biting ones have made an appearance, and they don’t normally plague us until July. Dreading what they will be like in the heat of the summer. Warm winter bad!

The ticks are terrible this year too. We put spot-on on all the animals so they are protected, but we have still had to take several off the dog - and off me.

I need to get new face masks for the horses (or Owen at least), these ones with two holes for the ears make it hard to know what to do with their fringes. It can’t be comfortable poking out the holes like this and sometimes it slips back inside and tickles their eyes.

Daisy isn’t so bothered by the flies, but I didn’t want her to feel left out!

Ducklings are getting big

The ducklings are 5 weeks old now. They grow fast!

Chicks first time outside

A benefit of hatching the chicks a bit later in Spring than normal is that they can go outside early on, meaning a little less poo stinking up the house.

They look a little nervous at first, but soon get in to it.

Walk round the Virgin

This is one of our favorite walks so you may get bored of hearing about it (though I don’t post every time!). It is close to home and has amazing dramatic views. It isn’t too steep but feels like you are in the mountains.

View of Bagnéres

The Virgin

Might be a tilleul tree. They are good for bees and for herbal tea also.

Bug!

Going through the rainforest section on the way down. 

Lovely looking thistle

Rhubarb meringue pie

Bit like lemon meringue but with rhubarb instead! I love this pastry because it always comes out nice and crisp.

25cm pie dish

Pâte sucrée

100g flour

50g caster sugar

50g butter

2 egg yolks

Meringue

2 egg whites

100g icing sugar

Filling

About 8 medium stems cut in to chunks

3/4 weight of sugar as rhubarb

Cook the rhubarb with the sugar in the oven in a dish that the rhubarb just covers the bottom (you want the mixture to dry out somewhat which is quicker with a larger surface area) until the mixture is reasonably thick - juice will come out of the rhubarb as it cooks and mix with the sugar so you need to stur from time to time and assess the texture. It should take about an hour.

Make the pastry by mixing the butter, sugar and yolks and then mix in the flour. Don’t over work.

Rest it in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight if possible.

Roll out and put in to the buttered pie tin, I find it difficult to get it in so often cut a piece the size of the bottom only and then build up the sides by squishing the pastry in.

Blind bake at 190°C with baking paper and beans until a light brown colour.

Make the meringue by beating the egg whites until they stand in peaks. Add 50g of sugar and mix well, then add the rest and give a final gentle stir until it is just mixed in.

Put the rhubarb in to the pastry (it should come about half way up the sides. If you have too much then don’t put it all in. If not enough as long as it covers the whole bottom of the pastry it will be fine!

Now top with the meringue. Start at the outside of the pie tin and put blobs on top of the filling, then put more blobs in to the center of the tin. Join all the blobs together and to the sides of the pastry.

Cook at 160°C until the top is pale brown and crisp. 20 to 30 minutes.

  

First attempt to get the pastry in the tin!

It looks a bit of a mess once the pastry has been squished in to the tin, but it bakes out somehow and will look fine! This pastry doesn’t suffer so much from overworking as shortcrust so it will still have a nice texture despite me having messed around with it...

More chicks

This is the 2nd batch. The first lot went off to Doug and Susan at Les Hauts Pâturages and are apparently thriving.

18 out of 20 developed, all hatched (with a little help from me), one died of unknown causes (it was a litte weak and wonky) and one died because it’s mates pecked at where the yolk absorbed (this happens during hatching) and I ended up . because it was suffering and unlikely to make it. So in the end 16 little chickies.