15 November 2022
...which title has no particular relevance, but it HAS been two years since I posted on here, so that glancing connection will have to do, me hearties, aargh.
COVID. Hmm. Yes. Travel bans. Travel restrictions. No flights. Few flights. Expensive flights. Masks on, masks off. Vaccinations. More vaccinations. And then the rather dizzying official push to Get On With Life (also known as Ignore the Lurking Lurgy). It's been a time, and we've emerged, somewhat battle weary.
With no friendly visitations by much-missed friend C - with his usual top-up of local goings on and gossip, bulletin of things needing attention, or not - to look forward to, we've had to rely on the erratic communication with local friend F (of Moulin Bleu) and neighbour L to keep us in the loop. And then there's our paysagiste, who never fails to send through invoices, though he miraculously seems to avoid being detected by our CCTV. Hmm. Even his before-and-after photos are suspiciously similar each time we manage to extract them from him by way of proof. We must have Far Enough Away Not to Be a Nuisance stamped on our foreheads (FEA on mine; NtBaN on G's). It's uncomfortable, I can tell you.
In a happier development, we have had the huge assistance of Frank and team, who have from time to time descended on the garden like army ants, and taken control of it. The pruning, weeding, munching side of it, that is, leaving Guillaume (and his Invisible Cloak) to keep the grass trimmed. It's been a not-inconsiderable expense, but willingly borne, given our temporary inability to visit and sort the garden out ourselves.
So, for our first visit to La Fromagerie in 3 years, we'd originally planned a month in the Autumn (October, maybe) but, for a number of reasons, found ourselves squeezing in a mini-trip slap bang in the middle of la canicule in August. Temps in the mid- to high thirties, day after day, that kind of thing, and night-time temps in the sticky high twenties. For the first time ever, we had engaged a cleaner to prepare for our arrival, and boy, was that a good idea. When she WhatsApp videoed us as she opened the front door, and the floor was covered - COVERED - in dead flies, we knew we'd be incredibly grateful for the luxury of a clean barn to welcome us. And we were right. The place was clean, the bed was made with fresh-smelling linen. It felt so welcoming, after our arduous journey.
We lucked out, this time, since we hired an electric car, which proved cheaper than petrol/diesel hire and was a delight to drive. Charging was a doddle - we simply hooked it up, through the window, to the power point in the dépendance, and it charged up happily overnight. Range was a bit limited, but we weren't planning any side trips, so what did it matter?
Needless to say, we spent pretty much all day, every day pruning, hacking, taming and rediscovering the garden beneath the jungle that had grown up around the barn, as in all good fairy tales. We deposited mounds and mounds of vego waste (carefully encased in huge Big Mat bags to preserve our very urban hire car) at the local déchetterie. When the heat became altogether too intense, late afternoon, G would repair to the cool interior of the barn to read and listen to music, leaving his ever-restless wife working outside, albeit at reduced pace.
It wasn't all gardening gardening, though; we had the time and pleasure to meet up with friends F and I, B and W, R and R over lunch, tea, beer, etc, and we spent one very happy evening at St Robert with F and I, enjoying the reflected warmth of the sun-soaked stone (and cold aperitifs) in that extraordinarily pretty little village. A large tarte aux framboises made a brief appearance on my birthday (and naturally, national public holiday), and we enjoyed the simple delights of local produce gifts from our neighbour J-M: freshly dug potatoes, still-warm large tomatoes, grapes and plums.
The highlight of the visit was the long-anticipated visit by our dear Croatian friend, A, who, with his now-deceased wife Z, has been a staunch supporter of our folly from the get go, and now enjoys special lifetime visitation privileges. Friend A got stuck in and helped prune and drag vego and generally cheerlead, while managing to suppress his natural disappointment that his visit to rural France had somehow morphed into a Workaway gig. What a rare and precious gem he is.
Our pergola was groaning under the old vines that had grown hugely since our last visit. Other plants (glycine, more vines and chèvrefeuille), newly planted three years ago, had taken full advantage of their sunny aspect and the structure of the pergola uprights and were well underway. In fact, though the pergola was yet to be covered by the creepers - there was a gap in the centre - the afternoon heat on that stone porch was already much attenuated by the dappled shade, and the temperature inside the barn close to the French doors was palpably less than in previous years. Success! Grapes were abundant and so were wasps - c'est la vie dans la France profonde, hein?
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| Peace, perfect peace |
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| J-M's bounty |
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| The rogue glycine |
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| Vine growth on the pergola |
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| Perimeter plantings and sick noyer |
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| Tarte aux framboises, anyone? |
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| Romantic moments... |
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| ...and more |
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| Glycine seed pods |
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| Misty morning |
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| Clearing makes things look a little bleak |
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| Willing workers |
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| Porch view |
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| Arty shot by G |
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| Pergola canopy progress shot |
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| Another arty G shot... |
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| ...and another |
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| The ultimate arty image of me training vines |
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| Porch vine progress shot |
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| This damaged pommier came down in the storm |
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| G again |
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| Rosemary before the savage pruning exercise |
PS Happily, the last three years had seen great growth in G's prunier, C's cerisier, and the self-seeded noyer sapling; sadly, however, the large noyer mothership was clearly failing. We've known for some years that it was becoming weary, hardly bothering to put out leaves until Summer was well under way. This year, the noyer was almost leafless in August, sending only gnarled branches skyward into the blue. It was with great sadness, therefore, that we decided to have the noyer cut down in mid-October, after our return to Aus. While on the property, the tree surgeon pruned the pommiers too, and he seems to think they are perhaps on their last legs too. Let's hope he's only a tree surgeon, and not a Tarot card reader too.
Clearly we will be planting trees next time we are over...
