2021 Update 3 - Opera

August would be our busiest time in ‘normal’ years but last summer was by no means normal although the Alkyona Quartet visit had not only delighted us with a house full of music but had stretched our abilities in the kitchen and we had managed ok.  

We had been cowering at Brel too long waiting for life to come to us.  We planned a visit to friends in the Haute Savoie, got in the car and drove across the middle of France.  What a delight!  We were thrilled to be setting out on an adventure in the car and so pleased to see again the wonderful French countryside spread out in front of us from the Puy de Dome to the Rhône Valley and beyond. 

Staying high above Annecy the views of the mountains and down to the lake are spectacular and the area has some wonderful restaurants - we managed some special treats during our short stay including a meal served in the potager of one of the top chefs.

Pianist Joanna Goodale gave a concert on our return - her third year in a row.  Joanna who lives not far from us is a great favourite with Brel audiences and this year played a programme of pieces by Schubert and Chopin contrasted with music from Armenia and Turkey.  

We even managed to fit in a trip down to visit London neighbours who have a house in the Languedoc. Our MV friend organised some wine tastings and we came back with a quite a few cases. Such great wines are being grown in the wonderful sunshine which was still hot in September.

Slowly our confidence in travelling was growing and Peter headed off to Dublin for his annual golfing break - which didn’t take place in 2020 at all.  The wives joined the golfers for a long weekend and a birthday celebration.  Amazingly the sun shone for the party!

We certainly felt rejuvenated on our return and ready to prepare for our pocket opera group.  The idea of a pocket opera had been quietly gestating for some months.  A fellow ENOBF Trustee, bass Graeme Danby had heard about Music at Brel and thought it would be a perfect venue for staging a cut back opera - Handel’s Semele was what he had in mind.  We had put off a decision for weeks as we waited for more young musicians to arrive but they couldn’t make it so a couple of performances of Semele sounded like just the thing to cheer up the neighbourhood music lovers.

Graeme put together a wonderful group of singers and a hugely talented musical director, pianist Stephanie Gurga.  Full details of biographies and the programme of performances is included elsewhere on the website.  It was as if a magic wand had been waved over Brel.  The weather which had been teeter-tottering towards winter cheered up completely and the sun shone on the still heated pool to provide somewhere to relax in between the extremely busy schedule of rehearsals.  In the kitchen we managed to produce enough food to maintain energy levels - lots of salads from the garden, chicken, lamb and confit duck from local suppliers and home smoked fish.  After months of being quite careful about how much we were eating on our own, I got into pudding making with trifles, tray bakes, tarts, crumbles and some home-made ice creams.  There weren’t many left-overs that week.

The team performed a recital of Songs of Travel on Thursday (with some lighter Flanders and Swann songs to finish) followed by two performances of Semele on Friday and Saturday.  The email in box hummed with bookings and the weather stayed fair although days were already shorter.  You could have heard a pin drop during the performances - the audience was so delighted and engrossed.  We had interval drinks served in the house for the opera as it was too dark and too chilly for anything post performance.

There were about 80 people for each opera performance and we have never received so many thank yous.  It was a classic win win win.  Not only was it wonderful to have such high quality singing and piano playing at Brel and huge appreciation from the music starved audience but also it was great for the performers to be working together on a production …… something they had sorely missed during months of separation and lock down.

Thank you team for a super performance.

Feeling rejuvenated ourselves, we had a quick trip to the opera in Paris and a then a drive to London to celebrate Peter’s birthday with friends which meant that we abandoned the cats again!  I like to tell myself that they are happy to see the back of us and can keep to their own schedule for a few days.  They are fed every day and cuddled a lot when we’re not around - and always seem happy to see us again, but they do seem to take our comings and goings in their stride.

While we were away a new lawn was laid by the pool. Fantastic. We got a new tractor mower too - Kate is happy - we are not yet ready to go too wild as we have plenty of wild areas on the property.

I started these catch-up blogs talking about lethargy and not getting on with things and I am surprised at how much we have managed to do as the year has rolled on.  Starting to blog again must also be a good sign!   As I sit here I can see one of the to do lists for 2022 which we are already working through and, fingers crossed, we also expect our musical summer to be a busy one.  Probably the most important New Year Resolution is to be much more positive.  We have been restricted in many things and life is quiet in the countryside but we are so fortunate.  For people on their own, people who are not in good health or for families who live in small apartments the pandemic has been so very difficult.  The toll on mental health may never be quantifiable.

Once again, thank goodness for being in the middle of nature. There is something so inevitable and reassuring about the changes in the garden during the year. Even in the middle of winter there are signs of life as some plants carry on flowering and the very first shoots appear for the early spring flowers.

The sun sets on Rosa Opalia which continued well into December.

Bright red nasturtiums (Empress of India) continued into December too. Last year they lasted all winter but this year the hard frosts we’ve had already have killed them off.

And the gaillardia which seem to go on forever. We have them all over the place and while I love their bright cheerfulness, they tend to flop and fall all over the cutting garden so they’re being moved to a new area all of their own where they can seed and multiply and put on a wonderful show this coming summer.

We mustn’t forget the cats. They’ve grown their winter coats and are super fluffy.

Ori and Eli jump on to the kitchen table to talk to us and have their photos taken. 13 year old Artemis is a little more camera shy (and less able to leap on to the table!).

2021 Update 2 - Plants

What a year it was.  I would have been completely lost without the garden.  The heavy work that Kate and I had done early in the year paid off although continuing rain made weeds prolific.  Some of the new grasses we introduced grew well while others were disappointing - finding the right place seems to be key.  

We bought grasses from the nursery, I bought some on line and planted a lot of seeds too. Although we have an huge established grass garden, I had not been using them much in the flower beds so we used some different ones in a new corner of the garden we developed where the ground was poor. Canna were potted up surrounded by different grasses.

We were aiming for plenty of colour.  Normally the flowers are at their best in May and June and by July/August things are looking a little sad.  But we had managed to increase the number of dahlias and zinnias so there was still plenty of colour in the beds.  When I was young, dahlias in all their blowsiness were deeply unfashionable but there is no other flower I have come across which gives such value over such a long period - the zinnias that I grow from seed come a good second.  

The dahlias have survived the recent winters and have proliferated so we have taken some out to make what we hope will be a spectacular dahlia hedge close to the potager.  We planted some large grasses and daisies in the ‘long’ bed and staked the dahlias individually.

I have now found a French supplier for good quality seed and dahlias.  We probably don’t need dahlias but I am very tempted to try one of the super tall dahlia trees which need lots of sun and can grow to 7/8 feet. 

Of course, dahlias and zinnias aren’t the only show in town and the cutting garden had a great display of gaillardias, echinacea and hardy geraniums.

I had a year when I bought no new scarlet geraniums and decided to have pots on the terrace using different plants - coleus, ammi visnaga, salvia, false sweet potato and tucked away on the left a chocolate regal geranium which had survived the winter in the garden room.

I also planted canna in some of the pots which certainly added a bit of drama to corners of the garden. I’m hoping to grow some from seed this year. They don’t survive the winter but I take them into my plastic tunnel and they are happy there for the cold months.

The focus of attention had to move from the garden to the kitchen as musicians were arriving.  The Alkyona Quartet flew in from the UK, Holland and Estonia in August, finding a way through the travel restrictions.   They had visited in 2019 but had changes in players and a busy schedule of concerts in the autumn so so hard work was needed.

I pulled out my cookery books and looked at possible ingredients in Peter’s potager.

Although there were courgettes, chard, beetroot, beans and lovely little new potatoes plus loads of lettuce of various kinds, we had had a couple of disasters. The badgers had got the sweetcorn!  And the tomatoes - all 50 of them - had succumbed to blight after so much rain.   

The weather stayed fair for the days that the Alkyonas were with us.   It was lovely to sit once again on the terrace in the evening and enjoy conversation from young people and hear how they had coped in lockdown times.  They came with us to a rose tasting with neighbours and told us they loved the food we prepared for them.

Once the invitation went out for the concert, the email was buzzing with people wanting to come.  And they were not disappointed by a great programme of works by Haydn, Kapustin and Schubert.  It was a hot day and one of the audience reported that it was the first time they had seen a musician having to wipe off their bow during a performance.  The audience in the concert barn was socially distanced and masks were voluntary. Full details of their programme are included in the Residencies section.

It was August. We celebrated the music. We celebrated a birthday. We started to make plans for travelling and a possible pocket opera.

2021 Update 1 - lethargy

I find it hard to believe that I have not produced a blog since May last year.   There are several drafts but nothing finished and that’s my 2021 in a nutshell - lots of ideas but little action.

So I have to admit it - it was a year of languor, lassitude and lethargy.  I felt as if I’d completely  lost my edge.  I couldn’t seem to get things done.  There was always too much on my to-do list.  

In emails and zooms so many friends admitted to suffering too and indeed it seems that many of us faced with many months of living under Covid conditions became rather stuck - lots of plans but little action and a wee touch of depression to go with it.

In the garden, we had started well.  Lots of hard digging, moving plants, adding compost and buying new plants.  A full programme of hard work for the first four months of the year.  But after that weeks of wet weather dragged us down mentally as we watched plants grow with water but no sun - loads of greenery but where were the flowers?  Late frosts completely annihilated the fruit crops. Tomato seedlings sat waiting for the sun.  I had some success with the seeds planted in plastic bottles (see below).  But the weather was hot one week and really cold the next.  Everything was late.  Perhaps as much as three weeks behind.

We had planted hundreds of bulbs.  The boxes arrived from Holland and Kate became the fastest tulip planter in the west.  They did look lovely - for a little bit - but the squirrels found them irresistible and dug them up! 

Finally, the sun came and the temperature rose from about 15 to 30 centigrade in two days. We put up the parasols and opened our pools.  Summer had come.

But of course it wasn’t going to be so easy.  There was sun but there followed some terrible storms, little local tornados resulting in flooded ditches and roads from rains much heavier than we’d seen for ages.  For several days we shut our eyes and crossed our fingers and hoped that we wouldn’t get more rock falls.  We were lucky.

The roses were wonderful with all the early rain.  The iris were disappointing as there wasn’t enough sun.  

Above the wonderful Golden Showers which is still producing flowers as I write. Below is Bonica - moved from our Surrey house about 15 years ago. It just looks as though there’s no room for another blossom.

I needed an adventure.  After 15 months at Brel, I fled to London to see my eye consultant and take part in a bit of research about eye pressure. It seemed like a good idea to have a change of scenery and a change of routine.  The 10 day trip involved 5 days’ quarantine and the super expensive get-out-of-quarantine-early pcr test meant that the total bill on tests for the trip was ridiculously expensive.  The few days I was locked away in the house gave me time to make plans and also to do weed the garden, plan what plants I was going to buy for the troughs in the front of the house and the pots at the back.  

The biggest treat was going out to eat - when I left France restaurants had not opened indoors.  In London I started to feel on the way to normal and seeing friends and talking face to face was immensely special.  My eyes were checked and ok, I ordered more glasses and I even had time to drive to Cheshire and give my sister a huge overdue hug. 

Below, my test results are negative - freedom to leave the house and go out to eat!!

By the time I returned to France I was sure that I would be inspired to do lots more.  And it started like that.  I headed to the workroom to do some mending.  Then I planned to catch up on all the ironing. I would read a book, do a blog and work on those photo books so overdue.  There was also the excitement of eating in restaurants - now fully reopened.  We made reservations at our favourite spots and discovered some new eating places. More people arrived into the area from the UK hoping that regulations would be lifted by the time they returned.  We chatted, we laughed, we are surviving we told each other, being here is back to normal.  Hurrah.   The neighbours came around again - eight around a table was ok.

But the regulations between France and the UK didn’t lessen (they eventually got worse) holidays planned were converted to staycations, families visiting cried off and at Brel where a summer of young musicians had been awaited, one by one they cancelled.  The longed for live music was looking unlikely.  Tasks got put off again. 

Our peaceful home in the countryside remained quiet during the summer but we did get some music in the end.

And we had the cats who didn’t understand about Covid lethargy!

Dans la cuisine

I did not manage to write a blog during the whole of March.  I don’t know how this has happened - it’s not as if I’ve been dong other things.  Projects lie unfinished in my workroom, books lie unread all over the house as well as on my kindle, and photo books haven’t been started.  Shocking.  March has certainly been a month for the garden with extra work needed because we have had no rain for some weeks. 

 So there have been seedlings needing cosseting and planting out while the greenhouse and my plastic tunnel are full of pots waiting for the moment when there will be no more frosts.  Unusually, we have had quite a few late frosts - the agriculteurs around here are already asking for compensation for lost vines and fruit.  More of the garden later. 

I want to talk food.

One of the most difficult things about lockdown - certainly since November last year - has been that restaurants have been closed. Our life has always been pretty full of restaurants visits - more so in London but also in France where we eat out less often but more seriously.  No chance of that recently.  But it has to be said that we enjoy our food and while restaurants might be closed, there are very good ingredients to be sourced in the supermarkets as well as speciality stores and the local markets.  However I haven’t been to a market in more than a year.  Peter has appointed himself chief market shopper and has used our local Saturday market at Montaigu de Quercy exclusively.  Wanting to avoid the general hustle and bustle of shopping in a market he goes very early and orders quite a few things in advance.  

M Lofthouse’s fortnightly chicken from local farmer Thierry

My favourite spot is a food shop called Grand Frais which sells excellent fresh food.  Our latest lockdown allows us  - because we are near the border of our department - to travel 30km to shop.  After a sweaty moment or two Peter worked out that Grand Frais is 29.8 km from us!  So I can continue to go and find my buffalo burrata, fresh fish and a huge range of vegetables.  

January and February in Southwest France means the delicious black truffle.  Every year we hold a big lunch for friends in London and truffles have been on the menu for many many years.  This was not going to be an option this year so we decided to hold what had to be a series of lunches given the 6pm curfew and a recommendation to have no more than 6 in the house at the time.

Peter went to see his Marchand de Truffes over the other side of the department and came back beaming from ear to ear.  

We devised simple lunches around the truffle sandwich - a combination of slices of country bread slathered with truffle butter and loaded with thin truffle slices - put in the oven for the ingredients to meld together with rather outstanding results.  Just a simple sandwich. We managed fishy starters: home smoked mackerel salad, prawn and coriander fish cakes and potted smoked salmon.   Then a choice of delicious cheeses with Peter’s bread followed by a small pud: mini steamed puds, or bitter chocolate creams.  Peter managed to find suitable wines in the cellar to accompany things!!

The good thing was - because of the restriction to 6 people - we ended up having truffle sandwiches five times!!

After the excitement of the truffles - and the delight of company, we returned to our ‘regular’ meals.   However, I reckoned that we weren’t making adequate efforts to cook new things and use different ingredients.  It was just not good enough to serve a delicious chicken (bought every other week from the local market) first as plain roast and then in lunch sandwiches or a chicken pie.  Our dwindling stocks of English sausages were invariably served with mash.  Having sourced some excellent plaice in the supermarket even our home made fish and chips were not extending our culinary skills as comforting as they were.  So we agreed to stretch ourselves a bit and use new ingredients and new recipes as much as possible.

Peter is the bread maker.  He found someone in the market selling wholewheat flour and since then we have had a regular supply of excellent wholemeal bread.

He regularly bakes focaccia but was persuaded when provided with some sundried tomatoes to incorporate them into the dough - the result was amazing and he then tried another delicious recipe with smoked ham and onions on the top.   I have been feasting on a chunk of focaccia for breakfast every day.  

So we expanded our menus.  Our English sausages were supplanted by local chipolatas from the pig butcher in the market. We cooked them in a mustard and garlic batter with slow simmered onions and sage.  We bought bream and cooked it with fennel, baby potatoes and vine tomatoes.  

And as for our regular roast chicken - this has been replaced by a string of delicious new recipes: bourbon and marmalade glazed chicken with watercrress and shaved fennel salad, roast chicken, garlic and potatoes with watercress, roquefort and walnut butter and green beans, chicken fricassee with morels (made successfully with frozen morels from the supermarket) and steamed vegetables with black garlic butter, cumin and turmeric roast chicken with corn cakes and avocado cream.  The list goes on but these have been some of our favourites. 

What gal wouldn’t be  delighted when her husband made some excellent puff pastry which went to make vol au vents stuffed with wild mushrooms - a classic dish but not so fashionable these days.  Our asparagus is now in season so Peter has been making more puff pastry for feuillete aux asperges with chervil butter.  Oh so naughty but one of the super treats of the season.

It’s quite hard work cooking from scratch everyday but here in the country there’s not too much on offer in the way of takeaway food.  An email from our favourite restaurant near Cahors got Peter into the car and off on the 50 minute journey to buy some delicacies from their conserverie - things that would last about 10 days in the fridge.  Everything was beautifully packaged and presented and we feasted on morels stuffed with foie gras, soup of baby rock fish and coquillages, veal sweetbreads cooked in a rustic style, and the most delicious rum babas. Not surprisingly we’ve since been back for more! We long to go back and sit on their beautiful terrace but Madame said that they did not want to open until it was possible to eat inside as the weather in May is not good enough for outdoor eating only. No dates in sight for restaurants opening yet.

Purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus and Peter’s entire pea crop!!

So Peter spends time in his potager. We have just finished our purple sprouting broccoli, the asparagus is in full swing and last night we had some wonderful baby broad beans. Lots of wonderful things to come before too long and I am hoping to make a taste satin with baby beets as well as wonderful salads with the various leaves available.

Landslides

I am sitting putting this blog together in the kitchen with a blousy basket of pink hyacinths in front of me.  Hyacinths appear in this garden in different beds in different years and how the bulbs get there is always a mystery.  I imagine a small red squirrel bowing under the weight of a large hyacinth bulb running round the garden looking for a new hiding place! These ones I dug up earlier and couldn’t find anywhere to put them so planted them in a basket for indoors.  I am always ambivalent about their perfume - heady and musky making me think of smells of youth - soap and old ladies. These pink hyacinths have grown rather open instead of a tight fat candle of flower and I was pleased to read that they are breeding them to be a little more relaxed in style. 

I’ve been in the garden a lot. Gardening is a terrifically rewarding occupation particular when you have time to do things properly.  Flowers that amaze with their colours, trees that grow to become key parts of a landscape and delicious vegetables straight from the potager.   But nature can be harsh too. Over the winter, gardener Kate and I spent weeks digging out some of the flower beds, ridding them of stones and adding compost and replanting.  We’ve never had the time before, nor have I had the energy.

Our endless rain has resulted not only in flooded fields but has drenched our hillside which mostly consists of chalk rocks. Chalk ends up absorbing the water and getting soft - resulting in landslides.

After a particularly wet weekend, I spotted a rockfall down the driveway which had bashed some of the photinia hedge.  I set about picking up the heavy stones and taking them in the wheelbarrow to our rock depot beyond the bonfire.  Then the crumbled wet mess that remained had to be shovelled up and taken away.  Eight wheelbarrow loads later, I thought that we were nearly done.  The next day Kate cleared away some more stones further up and we inspected this part of the hillside making sure that everything was safe for the moment.  As she went she asked me if I’d been up by the pool to see if anything had happened there and I assured her I was off to have a look - but by the time I had walked up to the house I had forgotten. The next morning when sipping my coffee in my pjs I remembered and wandered out.  OMG.  What  had been a new bed of vinca behind the maison d’amis was now a pile of rubble.  The bed beside the pool so carefully prepared only a few weeks before, was littered with huge soft stones. 

It’s at this stage that you have to be stoic. Gardener girls don’t cry.

In fact tears were quite close on the agenda anyway as team Brel consisting of Kate (outside) and Annie (inside) were both going through personal tragedies.  Kate’s mum and Annie’s father had both died the day before - awful Covid related deaths in the UK.  Not to be able to grieve properly, not to be able to say goodbye - just the most awful thing.

So everyone just got busy picking up stones and tidying the garden as best we could.  The girls are coming to terms with their grief and relying on family members to make the appropriate arrangements back in England.  A trip across the channel means not only isolation for days but costly tests and expensive travel costs. Then  I heard that a old friend in the States had died of Covid pneumonia.  We were all sad.

The crumbling hillside presented a problem and there was much discussion. Gabion cages seemed a possibility although hardly adding to the rustic landscape at Brel.  Our hillside is enormously high and nothing but huge high walls would really be strong enough.  We decided to do nothing and just hope that this would not happen too often.  

Nature doesn’t wait.  The rain was followed by sunny days and in no time plants started to show through the earth.  An early start this year after another mild winter.

When we moved here the grass garden was a sloping field where previous owners kept their horses.  It was one of the first bits of landscaping that we did in the early 2000s and the grasses on the three terraces are mature and tall.  Cutting them back overwinter is a big job and Kate likes to start to cut them back as early as possible in the year.  This year I persuaded her to give me a week or so extra to enjoy their winter display as they sway in the wind - with the village of Roquecor high above them.  In the end I had to admit that they were starting to put out new shoots. 

Kate donned strong gloves and trimmed them while I did my best to weed them.  We planted some new ones as well as some Rosa Spinosissima and tucked in a few rudbeckia to give a bit of a prairie garden look.   I think that we could spend several more weeks making improvements but when the grasses grow they are big and forgiving so we will adjust as we go along.

More sadness was awaiting us.  Two big black dogs appeared in the courtyard and were shooed away.  Kate couldn’t find her miniature Yorkie Elton.  We found him with bite marks and a broken back by the barn - left dead by the rogue black dogs.  Elton, smaller than our cats, had a wonderfully cheerful disposition and we were all heartbroken at this tragedy.  Kate reported this attack to the police who actually found the owner.  Apparently the dogs had attacked another dog as well as the owners son and he was told to put them down by the police.

So our gardening has continued with heavy hearts.  Kate is searching for another dog and time will slowly heal but it was a thuggish act.

We have moved on to rose pruning - not a moment too soon as the roses are already sprouting. The bonfire is growing apace and waiting for a day without wind - we’ve had some high gusting winds for three days.   My new little green tunnel is filling with rose cuttings - to go with the many other cuttings building up strength for the next season.

This week I finally got to visit the rose nursery which is about 40 minutes away with a friend who has many wonderful specimens in her garden.  I must have passed it many times but had missed the very discreet sign.  What a gem of a place.   

I have stocked up with Rosa Opalia -  a super white single rose that is very disease resistant and flowers for months - and Rosa Vesuvia - a smaller single pillar box red rose which spreads itself out with masses of flowers.  Now to find exactly the right spaces for planting.

The seeds are starting to germinate in my plastic bottles as they enjoy their mini ecosystems. They’ve been outside for more than a month and I was starting to worry but suddenly there are mini plants appearing. Other seeds which I have planted in the greenhouse with no additional heating have also come up.

Peter has taken delivery of 2.5 tonnes of compost for the potager and has spent the last couple of weeks topping up his no-dig beds. They are ready to receive plants but it’s early yet and the only things planted out so far are some very healthy looking peas that have been overwintered in the greenhouse.

February is coming to an end, the easing of lockdown is planned in England and I have had two vaccinations here in France although supply of vaccine seems to be limited after the first flush of activity.  Younger husbands have to wait!

It has been a sad month in so many ways but life goes on in the garden.   I just went out to take a photo of my rose cuttings and I spotted a big bumble bee on the forsythia.  It made me smile.  Mother Nature is all around us here and she is wonderful!

January Blues

Although I have always understood the concept of January blues I can’t remember ever being particularly affected.  I know about that miserable feeling which drags you down in the post Christmas period when the jolly festive season is over, winter is at its harshest and spring seems a very long time away.  But I have always had projects to start the new year.  It’s only a couple of years since I sold my business and when you have a business there are always major things to plan for the year ahead.  As a gardener, January is the time to get out the catalogues and make the shopping lists of seeds, plants and bulbs for the garden.  So January rushes by with planning and buying and planting.

A huge amount of seeds are on offer

This year seems different.  Well, of course it is.  Christmas was such a muted affair and on New Year’s Eve it didn’t seem right to do more than have a quiet sip of champagne and toast the fact that we are still alive.  As to the New Year - the prospect of the time ahead is so full of questions that celebrations must be deferred for another time.

So, it is with a bit of a shock that I feel a bit blue!  Just a teensy bit.  A patch of very cold weather and Trump’s antics have not helped.  

Time to pull myself together.  I pick up my camera and head into a cold but sunny afternoon to patrol the property and see what nature could provide me to make me smile.  It doesn’t take much searching.

The raised bed in the courtyard - lots of activity already

The raised bed in the garden is already bristling with the first green shoots of the various bulbs planted for the spring: dutch iris, two kinds of day lily, bright blue anemonies and yellow daffodils.

The long bed had all plants removed, the soil was improved and new plants were added.

The 500 red and yellow Apeldoorn tulips planted in the ‘long’ bed below the big wall are actually starting to poke up their heads and in the cutting bed the iris reticulata are starting to come up - these little gems should be in flower in a month. 

First tulips shoots. I’m going to cover them up because they’re too early.

I found a lot of flowers around the garden.

Bright blue periwinkles on the bank

Rose Banksia is trying to come out a couple of months early.

Our first narcissus are out. How cheerful is that.

A hot pink snapdragon just goes on flowering.

The grass garden is at its winter best and confirms my plans to plant more grasses as they look so good all year around.   A trendy prairie garden area will give a planting place for some of the rudbekias which have spread like mad in the cutting garden.  

The grass garden.

It’s impossible to be glum with so many clear indications of garden activity already happening.

Today is super chilly - started at -8C in some places.  Here just -4C when I let the cats in.  I always feel sorry for them when it’s been cold overnight (but they have lots of swarm places to curl up in) but they just ate a quick and quite large breakfast and headed out again! 

So rather than wander round the very chilly garden I decided to stay indoors and catch up on theory.  There’s a great garden video series called Get Gardening with writer and broadcaster Alan Gray - who seems to know everyone in the gardening world.  During the lockdown he has been doing a podcast called Talking Dirty with Thordis Fridrikksen - and they chat to well know people in the gardening world. It’s very informal and informative.  I really enjoy it - they are natural presenters and have a good laugh and certainly cheer me up while I’m learning about new plants and ways of gardening.  They had Derry Watkins on the show not long ago who has a company called Special Plants - she offers unusual plants as seeds and small plants and this year I’ve ordered some of her seeds.  Some are already sitting out in the cold ready to burst forth in the spring and others I’m planning on planting a little later.  

However, I found another little video about starting seeds early in large plastic bottles.  You make holes in the bottom, cut the bottle in half, add seed compost and seed, tape up the bottle again, throw away the stopper and leave them outside.  As I have a selection of large plastic bottles from the mineral water I put in the iron, I’m going to have a go.  Not today though - I shall wait for tomorrow when the temperature is going to hurtle from -4 to +5 and stay up there for a week or so.  Does that mean winter is over?  Probably not.

So the garden has, as always, cheered me.  And in the kitchen I’ve been making some new soups for lunch - some of them quite delicious.  Sorrel and lentil - a great combination.  Cauliflower and walnut cream - yum.  Broccoli and roquefort - naughty but lovely. Beetroot with blue cheese toasts - super nice. Finally, the classic french soups - leek and potato and most recently French onion soup, although I suppose strictly speaking it should just be onion soup here.

Golden beetroot soup with roquefort toasts and Brel walnuts

Peter found some seville oranges in the market so decided that marmalade making would cheer me too.  So I got lots of sticky fingers and made 12 pots. 

I think the very action of writing a blog has chased those blues away. The weather has warmed up and I can go into the garden - there’s always weeding and cutting back to be done. I my be able to apply for a vaccination by the end of the week. There’s so much to look forward to …… just some difficult moths to get through but thankfully lots to do.

We can’t have a blog without a fluffy cat!

‘Tis almost the season

Unbelievably it is December and we have been here in France since lockdown began on 17 March.  Where has the time gone? 

Before COVID we’d been getting used to a three weeks in France, one week in London sort of schedule with France being quiet in the winter but super busy with visiting musicians in the summer while London was always full of family and friends, operas, concerts, theatre and restaurants.  Late nights in London - recovery in the wonderful country air in France.  It seemed to be a balance that worked.  

Now we are in quiet mode all the time! 

Ori explores the herb garden while Eli enjoys the autumn sunshine

The good thing is that time is not heavy on our hands - the days rush by.  

Ten months is a long time and huge things should have been achieved.  Indeed the garden has been well cared for and dug over and replanted.  The house has been cleaned and tidied and cleaned again, and we even managed to host some musicians in August and fill the house with music if only for a short time.  

Even the greenhouse got a spring clean and window clean

New pathways have been added to the cutting garden which has been completely replanted.

We’ve enjoyed fresh local produce from the market and our own vegetables and fruit from the garden.  We’ve done loads of cooking and tried out lots of new recipes.  

December lunch on the terrace with burrata, citrus fruits and fennel.

But I am appalled at how many projects I have not not completed.  There are books not read (including some corkers only just started: John Bolton’s diaries, the Man in the  Red Coat by Julian Barnes and Nursing Churchill written by the sister of a schoolfriend on discovering letters written by her mother to her father while nursing Winston Churchill through pneumonia.

As yet unfinished but I’m working on it

I’ve been meaning to make two raggedy anne dolls for adorable twin grand-daughters of an old Canadian flatmate in Vancouver - they won’t get there for Christmas but happily the little girls are too young to be aware of a Christmas deadline. I have some wonderful old linen to make into some pretty cushion covers - not yet even cut out.  I haven’t done a single jigsaw.  We downloaded last year’s movie of Little Women early in the year - but we haven’t watched it yet.   

Someone give me some hair and clothes please!

Little did we think when we drove down across France that we would be here for Christmas.

Now the festive season approaches and, feeling despondent about the pandemic and even more about Brexit s it approaches, we planned something completely low key.  We have often in past years spent very quiet but happy Christmases on our own.  

But in to misery doesn’t seem right any more than going the party party party route.  Slowly my resolve to close the shutters and say humbug to it all has broken down!

My favourite nursery provided a lovely tree.  Rummaging upstairs I found more baubles than I remembered.  A wreath for the door has been fashioned from existing decorations.  We have no fir trees on the property so our abundant ivy has been used for garlands.  Our Christmas newsletter has been written and more importantly the mailing list has been sorted - we hope!

Lockdown has certainly brought us closer together with the local friends we’ve made over recent years. We have shared experiences over Zoom when we can’t meet up and enjoyed cautious get-togethers over the summer.  Now, regulations have changed and we can move around without giving a reason and without a signed attestation.  So meeting up for a drink with neighbours sounds good.  And the diary is quietly filling with invitations as well as the Zooms with friends and family around the world.  

Abundant leeks this year

The internet has also made it possible to send token gifts - mostly flowers and food - to cheer up friends and family.   A couple of flying trips to London by Peter have allowed me to send some duck confit and other local delights to London although pick up from Brook Green has been the order of the day as he is quarantined and cannot move out of the house so cannot see anyone or go out to shop there. 

Now Peter has ordered a goose from his favourite chicken man in the market and we are planning what seafood to get.  The French do love their seafood and at the festive season it is fresh and excellent even in this mostly meat-eating area.  We have been treated to  a wonderful side of smoked Irish salmon and Peter is making some foie gras terrine. The garden has leeks and sprouts and beetroot and celeriac.  Neighbours will help us eat this Christmas fare.

Local foie gras - the shutting of restaurants has meant that there’s a lot of foie gras - and the price is keen.

So we are celebrating Christmas - quietly and cautiously.

The news from London is that our next door neighbours are being vaccinated this week . Things are starting to happen. 

Now we are nearing the end of a strange and terrifying year, our thoughts move on to the New Year.  Our own resolutions don’t seem that important (although I will be continuing to try and complete my unfinished lockdown tasks asap and a vaccination would be good whether here in France or in the UK).

Signs of spring as the viburnum starts to blossom

What I still hope is that the Government says ‘ COVID is taking too much time and money - we can’t deal with Brexit at the same time.  We must put it on hold’. Pigs might fly.

So we have to cope with what is thrown at us on the Brexit front.  We have to hope that vaccines will eventually lead to COVID being under control. Our politicians have not served us well on any front and we find ourselves in a world of sharp divisions.  I have finally put music in the kitchen so we do not have to listen to the constant whingeing whipped up by the media. Only bad news counts. The media has a lot to answer for.

More signs of spring - daffodils, iris reticulata, dutch iris and day lilies above ground - tulips still to come.

I suppose above all, I hope for freedom in 2021.  I cannot think how terrible it must be to live under a dictator - North Korea style.  We have had space, comfort, food, communication with the outside world and yet we have had months of limited activity and worst of all very little interaction with others apart from Zoom.  We have lived with the prospect of being stopped by the police - something which happened quite a lot in the first months of lockdown.  Although we understand that there’s a pandemic and it’s for safety’s sake, the erosion of personal choice is hard to accept.  

We and our families and friends have been safe, thank goodness - may that continue until we can mix and hug once again.  

So ‘tis the season to be …… yes, JOLLY. Bring on the Christmas carols and open the bubbly!  Happy Christmas.

PS: Here in the countryside there is so much joy to be had from nature …. everything free to be enjoyed. There was a wonderful sunrise this morning and neighbours who are a little higher than us could see the Pyrenees.

We were bathed in a beautiful pink light ….

And we still can’t get blasé about the wonderful sunsets

27 November 2020

28 November 2020

8 December 2020

Autumn update

They always say that we Brits are obsessed about the weather - mostly talking about it! Well, perhaps, but down in this part of rural France people talk about the weather a lot too - it’s really important for the farmers, primarily, but also for tourism (although that’s something that doesn’t exist at the moment).  There are loads of weather forecasts - and we all tend to have different ones on our phones - which inevitably all vary slightly.  But there’s also the personal forecasting that the farmers do themselves.  They KNOW what is going to happen - and within pretty short time frames.  

So when the noise of tractors drones and the farmers all suddenly appear in the fields harvesting a crop, or sowing something new - you know there’s going to be a change in the weather.  And sure enough - they’ll be working with their headlights on in the dark and a few hours later it will be pouring down with rain.  

Early morning mist as the sun rises over the balcony

Well, there wasn’t much need to forecast for rain this summer.  There wasn’t that much.  There had been enough over the winter to fill up the lake again but the hot weather started very early and some of the plants really suffered.  The annual plants that I put in about April - including geraniums - just did not flourish this year like they normally do. They just sort of sat there.  Some little annual asters that I used to edge a flower bed sat there all summer.  Despite regular watering a few of them even curled up at the edges and turned brown.  But then in September and October when we got a bit of rain they started to flourish and grow and now in November they look quite good.

Marigolds did the same thing and I have nasturtiums flowering now which have had no flowers all summer.  Weird.

November has been a terrific warm month.  Cooler nights but sunny days and bright blue skies. Wonderful sunrises and sunsets.  A month to remember.  I had my last swim early in the month and now regret closing down the pool so early because there’s nothing like swimming looking up to clear blue skies and rich autumn colours all around you. 

The rich autumn colours of the abelia bushes below the oaks still dropping their leaves

While annual plants suffered, perennials (boosted by our regular watering systems using the lake water) have thrived.  The late good weather has been perfect (sometimes too warm) for gardening and Kate and I have been digging out the beds to reorganise the planting and add news things.  Our crocosmia have multiplied magnificently.  Rudbeckia have grown everywhere.  Gaura are in their hundreds.  We are having a busy time developing new areas and finding places for everything.  Red hot pokers have grown huge and must be split - in fact we’re planning a knifophia bed for next year.  Dahlia tubers have swelled enormously and must too be divided.  The number of iris must have doubled over the past couple of years and we have somehow found new homes for them all. 

Crocosmia had got out of hand in my cutting garden - they have been dug up and we have hundreds of corms to replant

I have also been able to visit my favourite nursery for new supplies and we have planted an additional row of smallish flowering shrubs in the raised bed on the bank beside the barn.  We hope that they will grow and in a few years the bed won’t need so much maintenance. Plants will all be perennials and annuals will be confined to favourites zinnia, cosmos and marigolds.

Cosmos still going strong at the end of November

The long bed beside the pool is being cleared of stones and rocks - we’ve managed 12 wheelbarrows full so far.  There’s more clearing and planting to do there as we progress but now we are working on the ‘long’ bed which is full of dahlias.  Yesterday we cut back the dahlias and cleared the weeds and moved things we don’t want in this bed to new homes. Now we must get the dahlias further back in the bed.  Ideas of grouping colours together have been shelved as “too difficult”.   So we expect once again to have a wonderful mixed border of wild colours to cheer our summer. 

Dahlias keep flowering well into November

But summer is too long to wait for cheerfulness - spring comes first - and I’ve planned as much colour as possible.  I’ve planted about 300 iris reticulata to welcome in early spring, then daffodils and narcissus, then what I hope will be great displays of tulips in tubs, troughs and in the flower beds too.  I felt that I had not planned for a jolly enough spring last weekend so put in another order for 250 mixed narcissus and 250 mixed red and yellow tulips to plant in the long bed in front of the dahlias.  Hurrah we won’t have to wait until June and July when the dahlias will start to appear - the narcissus and tulips will be there first.   Of course, they have yet to be planted ...... and we still have a few more beds to dig out and areas to be sorted.  But thank goodness for a terrific November.

A new iris bed under our ancient oak. I started with about 50 and now have hundreds of iris all over the property providing a wonderful display in May.

I have been doing more cuttings and early seed sowing as well thanks to my new area - a 2-4 metre green plastic tunnel with windows and a door.  It’s already filled with cuttings and some early annuals for next year.   It’s my new pottering corner and I love it.

The flowers and shrubs haven’t been the only ones getting attention.  Peter has been preparing his beds for next year - his no dig garden is not so backbreaking but there’s still the endless weeding and lots of compost to improve the soil. He’s planted peas (still small as the first ones outside disappeared) and broad beans and winter lettuce.  

We still have beetroot and celeriac,  spring onions and leeks all going strong and providing us with delicious soups at lunchtime.  We’ve even been able to eat outside at lunchtime.  

Peter’s signature quiche lorraine

Brel sweetheart lettuce - seed from the UK as they don’t seem to grow them in France

We’ve managed to do all this in lockdown when, outside our grounds, we are quite restricted in what we do.  How lucky are we! 

We would not have achieved nearly as much if we’d had the rain we hear about on the radio in the UK.   Yes we have had morning mists and plenty of mellow fruitfulness but also full-on hot sun and clear clear blue skies. Certainly a November to remember.

A lost waist

Staying around home in Covid times means a lot more tidying and clearing than would normally be the case. Cupboards need to be investigated, stored boxes opened and bulging laundry bags unzipped to reveal their secrets.  As part of one such investigation I espy some brightly coloured patchwork in the bottom of a bag of old clothes. 

Wow.  Immediate recognition. I did not know that I had kept this piece of clothing.  It’s about 60 years old (and still to my mind very stylish).  Finding a storage bacg of material oddments back n the 50s, my godmother - who was not a greatly practical person at all - decided to get into patchwork.  She made some great cushion covers and then progressed to other things. These were the post war days when gals wanted to be glamorous but there wasn’t a lot of money around for shop bought clothes so many people made their own.

My godmother made her two teenage daughters circular skirts with brightly coloured pieces of curtain material.  I remember seeing the girls wearing their new skirts with a plain black scoop neck top and some bright jewellery.  They were 3 and 6 years older than me and seemed unbelievably sophisticated.  I’m sure the girls would say now that they cringed at home made clothing and particularly a skirt made of bits of old curtains.  But I thought that the skirts were wonderful and remembered wondering when I would be able to wear such an outfit. I didn’t have to wait long. My godmother read my thoughts well and made me my very own skirt.

I tugged at the colourful patchwork in the bag and there it was still all in one piece. How I loved that skirt! I got my own black top and jazzy necklace and I too became wonderfully sophisticated. I know that it stayed a key part of my wardrobe for many years and I could never quite bring myself to throw it out.

What memories it brought back! Closer inspection brought disbelief.  Was that the waist?  Was it possible that this garment once fitted me? 

The waist measures 23 inches. We did go in for small waists in those days and the modern girl has a different shape. I remember offering it to a slender niece when she was in her teens -  and she admitted that it was way too small for her.

I don’t remember ever seeing a photograph of me in this wonderful skirt - but there must be one somewhere. The tinyness of its size led me to look down at myself and what do I see?  No waist at all and indeed, could it be true - I may have developed a LST - a lockdown spare tyre.  OMG where did that come from?  It is indeed very tyre like and has given me a totally new shape or should I say a remarkable shapelessness.  I can still see my feet, thank goodness.

The Brel fry up. With discounted foie gras because restaurants are closed we managed a plateful of sautéed FG with Brel apples and a potato rosti - a rare bit of indulgence. Naughty but v nice.

I thought that I had been very careful - not eating too much (wrong), not drinking too much (wrong) and getting a reasonable amount of exercise in the garden (wrong).  I little bit of truthful analysis made me remember the rather too-often treats: special home-made breads, extra creamy cheeses, crispy fried potatoes, strawberries WITH cream, raspberries WITH cream, iceCREAM and the list goes on even though treats have not been every day and portions have been modest size.  

Then there are the GnTs, the French 75s the Manhattens and the Negronis and all the wonderful wines from the cellar.  Oh dear.  

But I did all that weeding and even some digging in the garden. Even during the hottest time there was watering to be done and endless trips from flower bed to barn to greenhouse to find the fork you’d left behind.  And now more digging over and weeding and planting. How can it have happened? 

Clearly having spent the first months of COVID developing a LST I must spend what will probably be the next 6 months getting rid of it.

The exercise bicycle with a view

I have developed my own 10 point plan for finding a waist - not the tiny waist of my teens but one suitable for an older person with a heredity for putting on weight in maturity!  The worry is that the new shape is just my body getting older and change will be very hard  But here goes....

1. Eat less

2. Treats are not for every day

3. Cocktails are for special occasions

4. Wine means low on quantity high on quality 

5. 50 sit ups are not enough - 100 are better

6. 10 minutes static bike is not enough - half an hour is better

7. Gardening means really heavy work and building up a sweat

8. Keep moving - except when a cat is on your lap

9. Eat less

10. Smile and laugh as much as you can

Music in 2020

Our summer season at Brel had started to be planned when lockdown arrived.  We had four or 5 groups pencilled in but once we were locked down we didn’t try to find anyone else as we had no idea what would happen.  We speculated about how easy travel into France would be, about groups having other paying commitments which they wanted to take up, about having an audience.   Time went by and everyone waited to see what would happen..... and waited.

The empty concert barn waits ….

In the end we’ve had two groups - the other groups couldn’t make it.

But what an excitement for us.  Live music at Brel.   We checked regulations and because we are a private house and not charging money for concert tickets, regulations are relaxed - we set the rules.  However, in order to ensure that we had a happy audience, Peter emailed our mailing list to find out what people thought about masks and social distancing.  While some people admitted that they weren’t going out at all for the time being, others got excited about the possibllity of a concert but suggested that people should wear masks.  We socially distanced the chairs and thought that we could accommodate around 60 - half our normal maximum. 

We are lucky to have endless space at Brel so our musicians had plenty of room and the weather was good - even a little too hot at times - so we could all be outside for most of the time.

Joe, Bethan and Keval

We welcomed pianist Keval Shah, clarinetist Joe Shiner, soprano Bethan Langford and bass baritone Pieran.   They were so happy to be working together that at the first evening’s rehearsal they reduced themselves to tears - just hearing the music they were making together.  

The week rushed by with a full on programme of rehearsals for their concert as well as other programmes they were working on.  There was some time for enjoying the pool as well,

Piran

Peter and I managed to produce some dished using the best from the garden (tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, courgettes, onions, beets) with local breads and cheeses, melons and peaches. Some old favourites featured on the menus: tomato summer pudding with quails’ eggs, beet jellies with goats cheese and of course a pizza evening with diner participation! Bethan was chief runner between kitchen and pizza oven.  

PLizzas ready for the oven

Bethan completes the pizza running

We sat around the table on the terrace in the evening watching the sun go down and hearing about their plans for the future and what they had been doing during lockdown.  Bethan had started up a giant cookie business and was selling them with great success in Shropshire farmers’ markets.  Rather a healthy eater herself, she had mastered the art of making the perfect moist mixture for huge biscuits deliciously gooey with chocolate, marshmallows and all things naughty. She said that she simply couldn’t just sit doing nothing with no upcoming concerts in the diary.  Every singer should have a second string to their bow.

Rehearsals in the barn

We persuaded them to give two concerts at the end of their week which was perfect as we had an audience of just under 40 for the first and just over 40 for the second.  This gave people plenty of room. The audiences who were so happy to hear a live performance were especially appreciative and emotional.   

Ori wants to come into the concert

But it’s Artemis who gets in ….. through the Artistes Entrance!

Their programme included works which were grouped around phases of love: First Encounters, Unrequited Love and  Heartbreak and Remembrance and included a wide range of composers from Mozart to Britten. 

For us it was great to have more people around after months of just the two of us.  They headed back to the UK before quarantine was imposed.  Keval was off to Helsinki at the end of August to take up a position as Lecturer of Lieder at the Sibelius Academy - the youngest person ever to have this position.

V in her birthday chair

We had a break after they went off - and Peter presented me with a hanging chair to encourage more moments of rest and relaxation  It’s a lovely comfy thing and I’m slowly remembering to take a few minutes just to sit, and hang and think! 

We were all ready to welcome the Brel Song School with Joe Middleton and Amanda Roocroft when the UK government imposed 2 weeks quarantine on return to the UK from France.  Work commitments meant that they just could not do that so they had to stay in the UK. The rooms were all ready but the menus weren’t properly planned and the shopping hadn’t been done so we looked forward to a few free days.  Well, they were free in the diary but somehow disappeared -  our garden needed some cossetting and we managed a few jolly outings to eat with friends.  And before we knew it we were awaiting the arrival of more musicians.

Juliette and Fabien

Juliette Sabbah had visited us four years ago with the French Song School when she was at the Royal Academy in London.  Now based in Paris she wrote and asked if we had space for her to come with young tenor Fabien Hyon because they had been given a grant to put together a show of songs about Paris - Paris Vagabonde - with many poems by Prevert and Apollinaire set to music by Kosma, Poulenc and others.   With no travelling problems from Paris, we jumped at the possibility of an all-French programme - something different.

Whiskey tasting for Fabien

We had an amazing week with these two talented young musicians - not just partners in their Paris Vagabonde programme but partners in life too.  They worked extremely hard and practised their songs - amending and improving their performance all the time.  They were making a disk of the programme just about a week after they left us - so needed to be absolutely ready. 

The weather wasn’t so boiling hot and we even had to eat indoors some evenings as the air was chilly after the sun came down.  

They gave two concerts. The audience was delighted with the programme and everyone wanted to speak to them after the concert.  For the first concert 25% of our audience was French.  

The songs were very “French” and Juliette and Fabien worked to make them ‘performances’ with lots of emotion and colour.  There was also a special frisson when they worked together noticed by quite a few in the audience!  

The two of them had been locked down in Paris with Juliette’s cat who she missed a lot.  However, she did have our three to amuse her and especially music loving Artemis.

We hope that we might catch up with one of their performances in the spring. 

Juliette and her new pupil.

Last night we had a final concert.  It was the return of pianist Joanna Goodale who gave a concert last year.  She is not part of the Brel music programme but an interesting and accomplished pianist who actually doesn’t live far away.  Many of her concerts have been cancelled in the last months and she was very pleased to be able to give a live performance in our concert barn.

Peter intoduces Joanna to our masked and socially distanced audience

Just before the concert, our departement Tarn et Garonne became a Red Covid Zone which means that measures can be taken locally if necessary.  However, after checking, there were no restrictions for us so long as people wore masks in the concert hall and used the hand gel provided.   It seems almost impossible for a sparsely populated area like ours to have more than 50 cases per 100,000 but the story has it that it started among the fruit pickers who come in at this time of the year to harvest the apples and the Chasselas grapes. 

Our audience was not put off and we had 60 socially distanced and masked concert goers who really enjoyed Joanna’s performance. 

Debussy’s Claire de Lune was one of the pieces Joanna played

The Tibetan bells add gentle sounds to Joanna’s piano improvisations

 Joanna has been working on a new programme.  She played some Debussy and some Satie - around the themes of water, snow and moonlight.  She also played some of her own improvisations using gongs and Tibetan bowls and got the piano to make some very interesting noises.

We all had a glass of wine together on the terrace and enjoyed nibbles - many of which people had donated.  The general consensus was that live music is very soothing.  The virus has restricted all our lives and even though we are in wonderful countryside here with plenty of open space and good air - music adds a special plus to proceedings! 

The sun sets over the lavender labyrinth

So our hectic 2019 with eight groups of musicians was followed by just two resident groups and an extra concert in a 2020 Covid world.  We are so lucky to have had these performances and the concerts have given so much pleasure to music lovers in the area.  And Brel has once again been full of song and music if only for a short time.

Les Roses a Brel

I love roses - there’s something truly special about the enormous contrast between their solid and prickly stem structure and their delicate beautiful flowers.  I have masses of books on roses amassed over the years and still now continue to spend lots of time poring through catalogues from David Austin, Peter Beales and a much more recent recommendation nursery R V Roger in Yorkshire - whose quality is first class and prices excellent.  I’ve always had roses in the garden.

When it comes to actually choosing and buying however I tend to be cautious because you need patience to find the right spot and get the plant established.  Here at Brel where the climate is hot and dry it’s crucial.  We now have lots of roses on the property - mostly climbers as we have so many walls and banks but I am hoping to establish more shrub roses in the beds as there are now more hardy long flowering varieties which can manage in the heat - and some recent recommendations for suppliers need to be investigated for next year.

New Dawn

I’ve always loved pink roses best although the SW French climate favours drama so I have learnt to love reds and oranges as well.  One of my favourite pink climbers is the very pale New Dawn. We have at least three of them and the biggest and best grows over the archway to the pool.  It is really spectacular.

Bonica

Another pink favourite is the shrub rose Bonica.  I brought two plants to France that I grew in pots in Surrey and put them in the ground.  One has grown wonderfully while the other has rested quietly in her sister’s shade.  This year in particular there has been a super show of blooms.

Pierre de Ronsard

Two of the first roses I bought were Pierre de Ronsard - a vigorous climber with pink flowers which you see a lot in our part of France and climbing Iceberg - not a particular favourite but recommended to me for our chalky soil.  Iceberg is planted against the hill - in a place where chunks of chalk often slide down in a storm.  But it keeps on flowering and I love it now for its sheer doggedness.

Ghislaine de Feligonde

Ghislaine de Feligonde Is a good climber - an old fashioned rose which flowers mainly once but with careful pruning will come back a second time.  The apricot colour of the small flowers fades so fast to cream but it looks lovely when flowering is at its peak. 

 Other all time favourites are Albertine - which smells so heavenly even if it doesn’t last very long- and Alberic Barbier. My mother had a wonderful garden wall of Alberic Barbier with its cream flowers and very dark glossy leaves - it survived everything.  I bought one which had two wonderful years and then keeled over.  What did I do?  I will try again because it’s such a great rose but I need to find somewhere a little more sheltered.

Golden Showers

Two other favourites which have grown and survived well are Golden Showers - which seems to go on and on and the even more splendid Golden Wings - which has finally grown to a good size on the side of the concert barn.  I love it.

Golden wings

When we moved to London, I asked the garden designer to include some climbing roses - and naturally imagined he might discuss what colours I wanted.  But no.  I found myself with three Italian red roses.  I was cross at the time but this rose is so robust and long flowering that I have forgiven it.

I can’t find a note of its name but it starts scarlet and fades to pink.  It is extremely easy to take cuttings from so while I have them in London, I now have at least three at Brel. 

First rose of the season is our yellow Banksia. Wonderful arching branches of tiny flowers which mark spring’s arrival.  I took some cuttings and now also have a white banksia arching over a bank near the pool.  More cuttings are ready to find homes.  In fact I counted my cuttings the other day and have 16 which I will plant out in the autumn - all are climbers mostly from plants in the garden but some from other people’s gardens too.  

Frances E Lester outside the concert barn

We have several multi-flowered white climbers including Kiftsgate which has grown up into the woods, and Rambling Rector which is happy in a huge pot.   Frances E Lester is against the concert barn.  All lovely roses — simple, multi headed white small roses - alas one flowering only.  In the grass garden we have a bank of rosa spinosissima - only flowering once, but wonderful hips in the autumn.

And I nearly forgot the hedge of Rosa Robin Hood around the potager - one wonderful early season flowering - but then it goes on and on.  What a great recommendation that was from the Dutch couple that used to run the nursery at Prayssac.

I have to include my weird rose - Lancashire and yorkshire all on one plant!

A new rose last year from R V Roger called Country Music.

I look forward to more purchases over the winter and have been particularly inspired by the wonderful red and white shrub roses in the Touffailles garden of friends Viviane and Martin, which look quite spectacular in the French sunshine.   I think shopping for roses could beat shopping for shoes….. Vivent les roses!

A walk on the wild side

We don’t have to worry about ‘rewilding’ at Brel - we have plenty of fields and woods full of interesting wild life.  Taking a walk may start out as a form of exercise but soon turns into a wander through the trees and closer inspection of the sides of the paths to find  out what’s flowering.  There are lots of grasses and greenery and while you have small patches of flowers you certainly don’t have masses of colour. 

Orchid purpurea - or lady orchid - one of the first to flower in the meadow.

This year the orchids were tremendous.  Not just the normal pink pyramid orchid but also the larger lady orchids and giant orchids.  The bee orchids have also grown taller this year so you don’t need to investigate so hard in the long grass.  But the stars of the year have been the lizard orchids.  They are tall and showy and come late in the season.  I had spotted lots in one of the fields and was considering whether to make an interesting flower arrangement when along came the farmer to cut the field. 

A field of lizard orchids - an amazing sightt

A bee orchid

The farmer told me that the orchids were very late this year and he had left me a few excellent specimens at the side of the field.  I picked up some sad specimens which had been mown down and managed to make an arrangement to enjoy them for a little longer.

Artemis accompanied me on one of my searches for Eli the adventurous cat.

My searches for Eli - our cat who went missing - took me on new paths. While calling for her, I kept an eye out for what was in flower - taking photos of things that I did not recognise. I have a UK wild flower book and a Mediterranean one which is much more use as we are on the edge of the Mediterranean area and hotter summers mean more plants from the hot south.  More interesting is the app that I have downloaded (PlantNet) which has had a very good level of success and if you can take a good photo of the plant you need to identify, it is much quicker than going through pages and pages of a book.

Red helleborine orchid

Some of the flowers here in SW France are the very same flowers that I used to collect on walks when a child in Kent and Sussex - often taking them home and pressing them and keeping them in a scrapbook. They include grandmother’s toenails (bird’s foot trefoil ), purple clover, vetch, deadnettle and buttercup. All these can survive in our chalky dry soil although not in the luxuriance of a damp English meadow.  But in the hills, the woods and the fields there are many that I didn’t recognise and had to look up. 

Bituminaria bituminosa - - pitch trefoil. The stalks smell of bitumen (tar) when crushed. it’s everywhere in the woods at the moment.

Shrubby globularia is a pretty little daisy flower that I don’t think that I’ve seen before.

Field eringo - a wild form of the eryngium I have in the flower garden. It’s all over the fields and very spiny and you have to remember to wear good stout footwear .

This is a totally new one on me. I could tell it is part of the pea family. It is large yellow rest-harrow which grows in a sort of mount and is a typical garigue plant.

I think that this is my favourite of the moment - wild catanache or cupidone. The photo doesn’t do justice to its deep blue colour. I have some purple catanache in my cutting garden but this blue colour is superb.

I had to include this strange little plant with its distinctive grey green stem and leaves. When the flowers finally came out they are small and star shaped and bright yellow>. They close up when the sun isn’t around. They are everywhere this year - in the garden as well as in the woods. I looked the plant up I found that it is called quite simply yellow wort. I don’t think that I will forget that same - talk about does what it says on the label!

These are just some of the new and interesting plants I’ve come across recently. The fields and woods are full of wonderful specimens and I have promised myself to try to identify grasses a little better. I spent quite a bit on fancy grass seeds for the flower garden this year and I’m pretty sure that most of them are already growing close by.

A walk in the dewy morning in insubstantial footwear resulted in many insect bites up my legs and as I bent over to get better photos the critters got the chance to attack my torso too. Time to get the antihistamine out and stop scratching!

Postscript

My walks to find Eli revealed no sign of her. After 3 weeks and 1 day - our new neighbours who didn’t know we had cats, posted photos of a cat visitor on the local Facebook page. Bridget - key team Brel player - saw the photos as she checked up on Facebook one evening. We found Eli in the morning at the next door farmers - one place we were pretty sure she would never go as they have the hunt dogs who are quite given to howling. As Peter asked the farmer if he had seen her, she strolled into the courtyard!

Ori was very pleased to have her back.

Our crazy Brel cats

The other day I woke, got up and went into the bathroom to find a little mouse in the bath - it couldn’t get out.  Then I noticed that there was a cat on the windowsill outside sheltering from the  rain so I opened the window wished our old cat Artemis good morning and suggested that she should deal with the mouse.  She looked at the mouse,lifted and turned her head, jumped down into the room on her arthritic back legs and stalked off towards the kitchen.  She was quickly followed one-year old brother and sister Orestes and Electra - both excellent mousers.  But they were not interested and  taking up similar poses in the window lifted their tales and sallied forth towards the kitchen.  You could almost here them “No thanks.  We prefer Whiskas”.

Breakfast time - Whiskas or Felix?

Their arrival for food in the morning is always testing.  Ori and Eli eat from their own and then the other’s bowl, changing once or twice as if the other’s food is better.  The fact that Eli eats faster and gets more that way, may have something to do with it!  Matriarch Artemis is used to a few bits of chicken liver to make her day go well - and is happy to wait for the rapid cooking process.  Ori who wants to be very grown up is not so patient and waits rather closely behind her as she eats - hoping to get leftovers.  They like variety.  Best of all - they like to eat the same things as we do.  They smell a chicken roasting and that’s when they want to eat it - when we are sitting enjoying it- not in two days time. 

This whole morning rigmarole takes much longer than it should.  Somehow early on in the proceedings I’ve managed to turn the coffee machine on - but it may be sometime before I get to make a cup.

I didn’t grow up with any pets - my parents had a cat later in retirement which was very much part of their life but when we were young we just enjoyed other peoples animals.  My sister’s love of horses made up for the rest of us!  Peter’s family had always had a Lakeland terrier but it was clear from early days that Peter was secret cat person when other people’s cats would pick his lap out for a snuggle. 

When Peter and I married we were busy working people and had no time for dogs or cats.  We ha to be ready to head off for work or holidays without complications. Much later, when we had bought Brel and the renovations were under way, we were surprised when a cat found us.   

Kate found a kitten in the ditch going down the drive.  She was tiny and had got caught up in some electric flex - presumably mum and the other kittens had abandoned her.  This small frightened animal was coaxed over days to take food from us - to be disentangled from the flex - and to find a home in the big barn.  Kate and Michael shared feeding duties when we weren’t around and I remember the delight when Penelope as Peter named her, walked up to the courtyard and ate some food in the kitchen.  We were smitten.

A year later we got Artemis from the local cat rescue centre.  She had been found tiny and abandoned by the side of the road - thrown out because she was unlucky black. 

The two cats never got on.  They hung out in different parts of the garden and barns.  But they would hear the car when we arrived from being away and run up the drive from their various haunts to be at the kitchen door to greet us.  

You go your way … I’ll go mine.

The two cats have been part of the Brel experience enjoying the extra attention from our young musical guests.  Artemis is always keen to be part of the audience at concerts where Penelope would find somewhere to hide from the music.   What company they have been for all of us over the years.

The new kittens seemed tiny.

Last year Penelope got a malignant growth on her face which grew and we said a sad farewell.  A chance enquiry to my friend Barbara resulted in the arrival of two little kittens about two days before our first musical group in 2019 - brother and sister. We called them Orestes and Electra to continue the Greek naming tradition.  Peter prefers to call them by their full names but they don’t respond. Call “ori-n-eli’ and shake a food pouch and they are there in two twos.

Getting to know the territory……

A well earned zizz ……

Peter and I fell in love with the two little bundles of fluff - although Artemis had reservations.  Now, nearly a year after their arrival, there is a tentative entente cordiale.  The energy of the little cats is amazing - they rush off together, almost fly up the trees in the orchard and run round the property madly.  They find mice every day - most of them presented in the kitchen as presents for us.  They often work as a team when they find a mouse - moving in for the kill from both sides - almost like a miniature bullfight. Cruel but with a ballet-like grace. 

They live outside and have pleasant quarters in the garden room but it’s not at all clear whether that’s where they hang out.  The big barn offers opportunities for adventure and the lavender labyrinth is a good hidy hole. There are other wild cats out there on the hill that they need to contend with.  

They have certainly enjoyed lockdown as we have been here for a long time without mysteriously heading off somewhere else and leaving them to be looked after outside with no access to the house.  They clearly love the summer.  They both try to help with gardening although their efforts at planting and weeding usually means making a useful hole. Eli’s technique of leaping on to my back when bent over can be disconcerting.

Enjoying the spring sunshine in lockdown

As they grow up their cat independence grows too but they still like a cuddle and Ori’s technique of running from one end of the kitchen straight on to your lap is carried out like an Olympic sport.

Most important, they make us laugh.  They are part of the Brel family and we love them. 

As I publish this blog Eli has been off on her first big adventure. We have not seen her for 5 days but we hope that she comes home soon - so does Ori.

Helpful husbands

It wasn’t long into the marriage that I realised that my husband’s many skills did not extend far into the practical.  Not just his skills, but his interest too.   Happily I could change a lightbulb and wheedle help from friends if anything was beyond me.  We did borrow some indoor scaffolding and, together, after work, painted over the distemper which someone had applied to the dining room ceiling.  After this long and very stressful adventure, we decided that we would have to get other people to help us. 

The garden was a trifle overgrown when I first viewed it. That seemed to add to the house’s fascination.

By the time we bought Brel we had found support for practically everything in our UK hous - Victorian and needing constant attention. We shared painters, plumbers and builders with neighbours and friends.  But in France, building a network was not so easy when you don’t know your neighbours and moreover don’t really know what skills you need.  The cafe at Roquecor seemed to be a good meeting place for people who had various talents of rather different levels!  At this stage, Helpful Husband was working full time and could do little more than the all important signing of cheques as well as monitoring the grand plan (fix plumbing, electrics, roofs etc) from afar.

Professional on the job - the maison s’amis gets a new roof

We had always had a vision for the house but at this stage got I bogged down with just keeping track of what was being done.  Workers came and went and their interaction and back stories were fascinating but were just a distraction from ensuring steady progress. The heroin addicted electrician caught by the police and the Chilean who found himself in Tarn et Garonne with a mad Irish girlfriend were worthy of their own stories!   

The kitchen starts to take shape

Finally, everything started to make sense when Michael came into our lives.  A builder of many years’ experience in the UK and France, he listened, found solutions and did the work.  Instead of various tasks happening simultaneously, projects happened one by one and one job was properly finished before the next started despite our constant excitement about getting on with the something new. Peter retired and spent more time in France. 

Peter’s interest in what was going on grew apace. He decided to take over the potager  and immediately got wonderful terraces built to replace the dug-over slope where I had previously grown the vegetables with some difficulty. Michael spoiled us sinking water storage tanks to provide rainwater from the summer storms.  When there were few storms each year, he installed a water pump in the lake.  Good crops were assured.

The staircase in the maison d’amis built into what was a crumbling oven

He gave us a garden room and maison d’amis and then fashioned - with help from my brother - a little concert hall out of a barn without a floor.  

The music barn takes shape.

When we started to host musical residencies, Michael extended the accommodation at the top of the house with more bedrooms and bathrooms. He did everything - new flower beds for me, cleaning up in the spring, closing down in the autumn. One thing that we both agreed. We could never do without him.

But nothing stays the same and unfortunately for the last couple of years MIchael has been ill.  He’s on the mend now but would you believe it he has retired.  We are learning to do things ourselves - with instructions from Michael and a little help from our friends!  But with lockdown we are having to really learn new skills if we want things done.  

So it was with great delight that I discovered that Helpful Husband had taken several photos himself of the transformation brought about by the newly acquired high pressure water cleaner - the first time he had attempted to carry this job.   I call that proper job satisfaction.  We have quite a few areas for cleaning so the job satisfaction can continue.

Transforming the lower terrace

Far be it from me to imply that this is the only string to Helpful Husband’s bow.  From not being keen on changing lightbulbs when I met him, he now has a crateful of different bulbs required for all the various light fittings I’ve bought here and there. 

He has a very good electric drill and can hang paintings or install wires for roses.   Hurrah..

Time to plant out the tomatoes.

Although I considered it a bit of an aggressive takeover when I was relieved of my vegetable gardening duties, it has to be said that the new Head Gardener works with enormous precision - particularly neat rows. He also carries out lots of research into varieties which grow well in the climate.  He documents evenything. And the potager terraces have now expanded with a large extension where a huge variety of vegetables grow through the season.  

It’s not an easy life in the garden.  The lettuces are currently being attacked by some moth larva which eats the root at the base of the leaves.  Happily the broad beans and peas are producing well and the artichokes are just about to start.  Growing your own is perfect for lockdown!

Feuilletee aux asperges with chervil butter sauce

Not quite sure what the next learning curve is for either of us but I reckon our love of the house plus lock-down has brought us full circle - from never wanting to do anything ourselves, to not only actually doing stuff but also enjoying it.   Of course we have to make sure that Helpful Husband leaves himself time for cooking ....

….and the wine. Salut!

Eating well

In the UK the supermarket shelves had been stripped for a week or so.  So the first thing I did on arrival in France for lockdown was to check my larder.  I was really quite surprised at the many bottles and tins it revealed as well as pulses of many different kinds.  Large bottles of white beans and chick peas ( hummus and salads) , tins of tomatoes (for the winter months when fresh ones are not good) and tins of sardines, tuna and anchovies (can one ever have enough?).  Then a few slightly strange things: tins of lichees and mangosteen (a tropical salad not served), tiny white asparagus and hearts of palm (special treats for veggies) and Chinese lactose free chilli mayonnaise.  

To explain a little more, the young musicians who visit us on residencies in the summer have increasingly weird diet choices.  So we have to be ready for anything - gluten free, dairy free etc etc.  This particular lactose free mayonnaise will probably get thrown out although I am sure that it seemed like a good idea at the time. As well as jars and tins, various different types of lentils, beans of many colours, couscous in various sizes and good supplies of flour and pasta of all types - all in date - will ensure easy survival on the food front.

So what a surprise when Peter, having completed (and signed and dated) his Attestation de Deplacement Derogatoire form and headed to the supermarket, found the shelves bulging with goodies - not just stock items but lovely fresh stuff - even the sushi bar was open.

I have to say I was more than a tiny bit disappointed.  I was ready to drum up my ‘coping in a disaster’ spirit for our menus.  I had rediscovered my Betty Crocker and Fannie Farmer cookbooks from my years living in Canada.  All those dishes where you use condensed mushroom soup or chicken soup and rustled up a delicious tuna bake or a chicken sauce in two minutes.    

I found another wonderful 70s English book on using up leftovers which has a huge variety of methods of using bits of this and that and could ensure that we have no small bowls of ‘stuff’ in the fridge.  What other recipe book has three pages of recipes for stale cheese!

But I was just musing. Food is available. We don’t have to make crisis efforts.  And what’s more the local market is open by special dispensation from the department.  And lots of great local produce is available. Yoghourts, butter, eggs and cheese from Madame Poux in the next village, Massive rustic loaves, vegetables and strawberries - plus some magnificent rhubarb.

Also I had to face facts.  In the same way that I had been thinking how I could make things easy and delicious with minimal ingredients, my husband had surely been planning how he could do the most complicated things from scratch with multiple ingredients because time was available. And no doubt even more delicious results.

Clearly a new plan of action required.  We decided to play to our cooking strengths. We will treat ourselves continuously with good local produce as it becomes available.  We will make our favourite seasonal dishes but also try recipes we have never tried before.

As a starter to our cooking adventures Peter made a delicious cheese souffle - one of his top dishes. He served it with home-made sour dough,

It’s asparagus season and we have it in the garden.  What could be more delicious.

Asparagus tart, asparagus frittata, asparagus soup, asparagus risotto, pasta with asparagus, prosciutto and parmesan and plain old asparagus with melted butter - we’ve been trying them all. It still tastes delicious and we have had a tasting with the local purple asparagus which is very good.

(above) River Cafe green cookbook recipe for pasta with asparagus, peas, prosciutto and cream - not only our own asparagus but our first peas too.

It’s worth mentioning tomatoes.  As we all know tomatoes in season are magnificent things and when they have been blessed with the sunshine down here there are the best.  However, they normally ripen in summer. Somehow local producers have prolonged the season here and beefsteak, Marmande and noir de crimee tomatoes are available this early (April).  

They are not the size that you can buy later in the season nor is the taste so sun-kissed but they are amazingly good.  How they do it, I do not know.  It must be a fairly expensive process because they are often nearly 5 euros a kilo - but one large tomato can go a long way.  Certainly in a different league from an early dutch tomato.

Ticolour filo tart

Having more time means taking more time over lunch and that’s good. The sunshine has meant that we have been able to eat outside a lot and it doesn’t take much effort to bring real joy to the day. It could be a tomato tart with a green salad or a homemade soup with cheese and crusty bread. This sort of simple fare brings back so many memories of travelling in France and finding a restaurant with a great terrace and linen tablecloths for a lunchtime plateful of deliciousness and a glass of local white wine. Hurrah for lazy lunches.

Broad beans and peas are just starting and the rain outside as I write (finally) will fatten up the pods. We made a navarin of lamb with the first pickings - such a wonderful spring dish.

My experimental dishes have included white bean soup served with cold tomato salad on top of it (much nicer than one would imagine) and a salad of raw mushrooms with parmesan dressing (an excellent Simon Hopkinson recipe).  From Peter, sorrel and lentil soup (we have a lot of sorrel) and new ways with chicken. Peter gets chicken most weeks from his mate Thierry at the market.  We had southern-style fried chicken with garlic cream, which was most delicious and poulet sauté au vinaigre which was the best of all (two more Hopkinson recipes).

We’ve been trying to avoid cheese courses and everything but the most simple of desserts. But it is the start of the local strawberry season - the local gariguette strawberries are very flavourful. This year I notice there are one or two new varieties which must be investigated.

We have been enjoying gariguettes - mostly just on their own but I did make a rhubarb and strawberry crumble which was amazing.

Bon appétit

Easter activity

Easter has never been that special for us.  During our working lives, Easter always came at what seemed an awkward time.  Peter and I never took time off work during school holidays so we would suddenly find ourselves on the Thursday evening before Good Friday, having not made any plans at all nor done any shopping.  The Easter weekend then seemed to arrive more often than not with chill and rain.  Not a particularly good time for a holiday weekend.  

Now here we are in lay France and  Easter is no big deal either and it usually passes us by without much fanfare although more Easter eggs are available these days and good things are on sale in the shops to have as an Easter meal. 

So under French lockdown we expected our quiet rural life to continue as it has been in the weeks before.  With good weather forecast we and the neighbours were planning time outdoors, some Easter BBQ lamb roasts and Zooms with family and friends.  With no frost forecast, the brave were planning to get their vegetable plants out and the terrace pots organised with bright geraniums.  We had just had the excellent news that our local nursery had opened for ‘drive’ orders - in the UK click and collect - which is a lot more available under lockdown from shops and nurseries which are not open for normal shopping.

Peter headed to the market early on Saturday and reported loads of people, even at the early hour.  But not like normal, he said, people were not respecting the 2 metre distancing - they were being pushy and trying to jump queues.  We really didn’t think much more about it.  Generally, with more people around, weekends are stay at home time for us except for a quick visit to Montaigu market.

On Sunday we had a minor Easter breakfast celebration with eggs and asparagus soldiers.......

....and some rather yummy hot cross buns.

We managed a small veal roast for our Easter meal. Roast veal has always been a super favourite for me, ever since I was served it in Paris when on an exchange about age 12 by the family I was staying with.  It’s delicious cold too.  We roasted our meat with tomatoes and onions and served it with garlic potatoes.  I made a gariguette trifle for pud.    

There was even time to find a corner for a quiet read - with the cats for company.

Imagine our surprise when we found out at our regular zoom coronapero with neighbours that the area had been invaded over the weekend.   Many people - and their children - had arrived for the Easter holidays.  But where had they come from (Paris? Other cities)? and when did they arrive (in the middle of the night)?  They must have had places to stay as no hotels are open.  We heard worryingly that our mate down the road with a large gite had 13 people staying all weekend.  

You can imagine that our surprise turned to outrage.  Our shops had been raided!  Our rural peace destroyed!  Our cleanliness sullied!

Where were the gendarmes who had regularly stopped us on our shopping excursions or as we exercised?  We heard that they had been moved to the motorway junctions and other key driving points.  So how could they allow these interlopers to arrive?  What were the travellers putting on their travel declarations? There is no tick box for visiting the family, or heading to your country home.  So were they fined?  

It’s said that the phone companies knew that people were on the move because of their mobile phones.  There was talk of many thousands of people heading down to SW France.  

A trip to the local supermarket later in the week confirmed that a large percentage of the cars in the carpark were from far away departments.  So much for lockdown!  We will see if the rates of infection in Tarn et Garonne increase!

No point in being outraged.  The cats didn’t care - they are just happy that we are here.

Planting trees

Ever since we bought Brel, we’ve been planting trees.  We started with the orchard.  The idea of having an orchard was very special to me and being able to grow apricots and cherries of our own was a huge excitement.   We haven’t had total success - we’ve never been able to grow peaches or nectarines - everyone else around us does, so I’m not sure what we’re doing wrong!  Cherries have taken a long time to come good but we think that we probably didn’t have a good pollinator tree - which we now have. Apricots have been very good lately and our apple trees have healthy crops.  But it is the plums which are the star of the show - mirabelles, greengages and some large yellow juicy plums which are quite delicious. Add to these the crops from the wild plum trees around the property and we end up with a lot of plums - even though they don’t crop heavily every year.  July and August are full of jam and chutney making as well as baking tarts, crumbles and crisps as the plums ripen.

Every year, I’ve tried to plant two or three trees.  A mulberry tree was one of the first - and it’s now matured to a rather fine specimen.

We are not short of trees on the property - in fact above us on the side of the hill we have woodland but a huge percentage of the trees are oaks and the landscape is very green.  So my aim has always been to add flowering trees and coloured foliage

That’s not to say that we don’t love the oaks - in particular the one below the terrace which we estimate is about 350 years old - a very special tree. 

Another early planting was the flowering cherry in the courtyard.  This was added when we converted a small barn opposite the back door to a little guest house - and the courtyard was landscaped.  It’s grown prodigiously and we look out on it with great delight in the spring.  Would that some of the other recent flowering trees would grow as fast - but the soil is not great and the summers are blistering.

Tree planting seems to be very fashionable with world wide reforestation projects, national drives for more planting and now London is getting a million new trees. It seemed a good idea to get on the bandwagon to mark our 40th wedding anniversary this year (2020) with a special project - 40 more trees for Brel.

The plan was hatched in late 2019 and I got out my tree books (once again) and started to think about just what we should put in. The most important thing was to be able to water them in for a couple of years - and I’m not talking taking a watering can from time to time.  We had to find places where we could either put in a new system or extend what is already in place to provide daily water. I think there are 5 trees that actually have to be watered by hand but everything else is on automatic and using lake water.  The land is so chalky that hosepipes clog up after a few years - so we are forever having to put new links and systems.  

Hugely helpful in the process of finding what to plant has been the discovery of a great nursery, not that far away, run by a young Dutchman and his Flemish wife.  Enthusiastic and very helpful they have a large stock of trees and most of the ones that I first thought of were in stock with more suggestions coming later. Flowering cherry, winter flowering cherry, amelanchier, Judas tree, albizia, koelreuteria, laburnum and catalpa were all in the first batch.  That was before lockdown.  Then I found that they would deliver trees to us, so after we arrived and could no longer go out to shop at the nursery, we chose more to decorate the property - six birch for two mini groves, eucalyptus, purple hornbeam, dark maple, pink horsechestnut, and to remind us of Brook Green - two London plane trees.

Quite a few of the little trees have gone in to the top terrace of the grass garden and beyond into the copse where we already had a few niewish trees above a grove of wild plums. New ones all get a metal protection because of our many deer who love to rub up against every tree. I have to pay tribute to Kate out gardener who has dug more of the tree holes. I got her to agree to use a man with a mini peel - but he was just not available when we needed to dig the holes. Thank you Kate - you are amazing. Of course she had to do the watering systems too.

Exciting additions with the new plantings are two magnolias. Our chalky soil would normally be totally unsuitable but the guys at the nursery spend a good deal of time grafting magnolias and other acid loving plants on to chalk loving stock. This one is called Sweet Merlot and is dark purply pink. I can’t want to see it. A second yellow one has been planted with other yellow flowering trees in the ‘Secret Garden’ above the pool.

The view to the lake shows some of the trees that have gone in during the past 10 years - flowering cherry, crab apple, a mixed hedge and plane trees to protect some of the vegetables.

I have to admit that I have a small tree nursery as well with baby trees that have self seeded.  This year there have been literally thousands of acorns which have put down roots in every flower bed that we have here (the vegetable garden is far enough away from the oaks to avoid the acorns).   I spend time every day pulling them up but have potted up a few.  There are also horse chestnuts, sycamore and ash. So I am growing some of these for the future. 

Of course, most trees grow quite slowly and here with the baking summers they grow particularly slowly.  Sadly we won’t see our newly planted trees at maturity. But how lucky we are to be able to plant for the future. We just hope that whoever is in Brel in future years will appreciate our choice of trees and their positions! As well as continuing the planting programme.