The English Paysanne

Thankfully it wasn't raining today, although quiet chilly we made a quick visit to the plant fair at Laguepie before having lunch with friends. I was on a mission, the veggie patch is in a state nearly ready for planting, some seeds are in - broad beans, peas, mange tout, onion sets and potatoes. Normally I am semi prepared by now, seeds are growing in the propagator and poly tunnel but this year is a different story. I am late, late, late thus nothing has been propergated and only a few squashes and kale seeds have been sown in pots (yesterday). This is partly due to wet weather and finding other things that have desperately needed doing this year. Sprucing up the gites and helping farmer J around the farm, things have just taken longer to do. So this year I'm not stressing that I haven't grown from seed, I've simply brought veggie plants to fill in the gaps. Chillies, tomatoes, Peppers, rainbow chard, courgettes butternut squash, thyme and coriander. F...

Pasty night Shortcrust pastry, beef, carrot, potato, swede and onion, not forgetting seasoning. Roll out the pastry as big as you can for farmer J, layer the vegetables and meat, seasoning as You Go.   Brush water Around the edges fold over and seal to keep it all in. Pop in the oven about 180 for About 45 Min's. Delicious wrapped up in a tea towel in front of the tellie!

Country mice escape to the city Wednesday morning Anita and myself left for a overnight stay in the big smoke, Toulouse. After a quick detour to Ikea we hit our normal parking at the metro station the wrong way. This resulted in a little panic for Anita as we headed for the city centre. Abandoning the car by the canal we left to find miss F for a quick bite to eat, re parked the car outside miss F's apartment and hit the city. Toulouse is a very easy to get about place, not to big to explore. Capitol, this is where the mayors office , municipal offices, theatre and opera are housed. markets are held in the grand square, opposite are restaurants and bars. At the other side of the building is the mtetro station and tourist office. what we miss is shopping. The first time we visited we found an amazing vintage clothes shop called GrouchO selling clothes from 1800 to 1900. we've been unable to find it since but found its sister shop selling vintage clothes...

Monday morning was a nice day for a walk by the Aveyron river. Two dogs and two friends. We picked up another friend soon after we started walking. This is the track that starts the walk , at the end it widens to this one!  from here you can see across to our side of the hill where our farm is Along the way we found many wild flowers And these ones  along the river bank, i couldn't find them in the wildflower book. The path leads through tree trunks and branches covered in moss There very tactile, Anita likes to move pieces of moss from tree to tree - yes a little bit bonkers! It was such  a perfect morning. Along the way you can see the railway line.  The pathological goes through this vacant farm that only has access from the path you follow -a time when cars weren't around. Look at the   left top window, a bit like the crooked house. Toward the end of the walk you can see the chat...

Rape field On the way to french conversation we passed this field. I love the yellow, green, blue and white combination. Well done to mother nature.

The time has come..... Its been a long wait, the weather has not been good and i am so behind in cultivating our veggie patch this year. A fortnight ago it looked like this. Yesterday it looked like this And today it looks like this (only the part i took photos of, the rest still needs major weeding) This is where master C comes in, he arrived on the Toulouse train Friday evening, home from uni for the holidays and willing to help. Very different from a few years ago when bribery was needed, although I did treat to him to a pizza at the local pizzeria last night. We dug and weeded the morning away, the weeds went to the pigs. The asparagus was unearthed along with stray strawberry plants still coming up from when master C 's pet pig broke into the veggie patch and rearranged it. I will try to transplant the strawberries next to the raspberries and currents -  my plan to have an organised patch this year.  And eaten for lun...