MY PALM TREE IS FLOWERING AGAIN!

Big fat buds about to open! Unbelievable that it should flower two years running.

I"ve been doing a lot of gardening, digging up more of my lawn, moving plants from the bottom of the garden to the top, I even mowed the little bit of lawn that is left yesterday evening (wonders never cease, it's been two years since it saw a mower!). I've planted my potatoes, garlic, sown more radishes, salad, calendula. I've cut down a few dead bamboo poles and have made teepees around which to plant runner beans. My broad beans have come up, but thanks to all the cats that frequent my garden, that dig and roll in freshly dug soil, there are holes in the line, and some seeds which have been pushed out of alignment. Never mind. I'm so pleased to see it all growing.

Crab apple in flower on the terrace

Rhododendron "Jack"

New trough for my pine tree on my front terrace

Apple tree in flower in the garden below the terrace

Progress in the veg garden

 
 

Grama, 94th birthday

 



I went to England for a long weekend at the beginning of April for my Mum's 94th birthday. Nicholas came down from London, which was lovely, we managed to have a couple of pub lunches and a good chat. He's in Thailand on holiday now. The weather wasn't very good, but Mum's garden looked lovely. We had a celebration seafood lunch for her birthday on Sunday.

Grama's 94th birthday

I've finished another couple of pieces of pottery, a little serving dish for hors d'oeuvres, or amuse-gueule, in the shape of a Breton triskell, and a lopsided (on purpose!) jug with a snake handle and glaze that I wanted to look like the waves of a certain famous Japanese artist. Not bad, I'm quite pleased with it.





Waves on the Wave jug



Snake handle of Wave jug



I organized a "sortie" for my Quimper ovs (on va sortir) group. Four people came to lunch last Sunday to learn to make Chinese chicken noodle soup. It was lovely weather, we ate on the terrace and they went away with the recipe. I've just organized for next Saturday an exchange of plants: each person brings from 1 to 5 plants, and can take away the same number of someone else's. I may have cut the timing a bit fine, I'm wondering whether people will have time to prepare plants in three days... we'll see. And I'm going to a wine tasting on Thursday. Very busy, you can see!



Triskell bowl






Triskell bowl (close up)








Seafood lunch for Grama's birthday

Can't get the photos in the right order. Never mind, you get the gist?

SHORT TRIP TO DORSET IN JUNE

I popped back to Dorset for a long weekend from 17 to 22 June officially to attend Patrick Carson's 70th birthday party, which was very nice, and to see the family. Nicholas couldn't come down unfortunately, but I had a lovely weekend with splendid weather. You'll be surprised to hear I am thinking seriously of moving back to England. But I have to sell my house here first and that won't be until next Spring. I am hesitant because of the cultural aspects, language, food, markets, the beautiful scenery and coast here in Brittany, but Dorset is beautiful too, the climate very much the same, and though I shall have to speak English at least I have Steve's "Trencherman's" nearby for good food! The sea is not too far away, I would have absolute peace in the countryside (which is far from the case with my neighbours here in Quimper), and family around me. More of that in future posts.

I managed to finish my hallway in June, it's now painted, papered and re-floored and looks neat, clean and bright. A good selling point when people walk into the house.

I have been picking loads of raspberries from my jungly garden where they grow and multiply freely. This year has been so sunny that they have ripened as never before and funnily enough, the birds haven't touched them. My favourite fruit!

And then I had a visit last week from my Norwegian cousin Hakon and his wife Rona (Hakon is meant to have a little 'o' above the 'a' but I can't figure out how to do it on my keyboard). A most excellent visit, I felt very comfortable with them although we had never met before. In fact I only discovered his existence when I googled him last year, where would one be without internet?

And now I've gone into a lazy decline again, and can't be bothered to pick up a paintbrush and continue decorating the house, but I have been doing quite a lot of arty painting, which I may photograph for another time along with all the pottery I have produced this year. Nothing very marvellous, but interesting anyway to keep track.

ENGLAND, 1st - 6th APRIL

When I got back from India, I had one day to empty my suitcase, wash clothes, and pack another suitcase ready to take the plane from Brest to Southampton on 1st April. It was Easter Thursday but there were not many people on the plane. It's a very quick way of getting over to the south-west, the trip to Brest is quickly done, the flight takes just an hour, and the drive from Southampton home to Dorset takes an hour and a half roughly. My kind brother Michael met me at the airport. Without him I wouldn't be able to do it that way.

Grama in front of a plate of oysters!

We didn't have  very good weather over Easter weekend in Dorset. Nicholas came down from London on Saturday morning, and it was lovely to have a weekend to chat. Grama was on good form, she had had her 93rd birthday the weekend before. My brother Steve was quite free. So we all had plenty of time to get together. I opened oysters for everybody and did moules marinières at another meal. It's so handy having Steve on hand with all sorts of good food! And on Easter Sunday, the only day with any sunshine, we had lunch up at Michael's, lamb and roast potatoes.  After lunch we went for a walk with Steve, Nicholas and the dogs. Monday Nicholas took the train back up to London, and Tuesday morning I flew back to Brest. Uneventful, but a good family weekend.

A QUICK TRIP TO DORSET

It's been over a month since I posted. I've woken up and have started doing things in the house after a year of abstinence. Forced abstinence because my shoulder prevented me absolutely from doing anything really, that is now much better with the rest, acupuncture and some special exercises to muscle up the shoulder cap. And voluntary abstinence because I was sick of painting and didn't have the cash to do anything serious in the house.

So I've redecorated my little bedroom, the one on the ground floor overlooking the back terrace. It had to be papered, the walls are so uneven. So I bought a japanesy paper back in December, pale willow green with a textured irregular sort of folded stripe running top to bottom, but not straight by any means, which makes it very easy to put up, no repeats, doesn't matter if the strip of wallpaper is off kilter, etc. But first I had to remove the existing orange wallpaper, and the polystyrene liner underneath. That flew into bits and stuck everywhere. Then I painted the door a sort of pale pale primrose yellow gloss. Looks good. Changed the door handle. Papered. Changed all the plugs and switches, half of which were crooked, all of which were old and horrible. I have a carpenter coming in next week to put new plinths and boards (literally boards) all around the top of the walls to make sure the board ceiling doesn't fall on me when I'm asleep!

New bedroom, very nice! Too small to photograph I think.

Then I put the power hose over the terrace behind the house, long job, messy. And the wall. I still have the steps down into the garden to do and the garden paths, then I can put it away for another year. The terrace is north facing and in winter gets practically no sun. The wall in question was white and grows moss and pink micro-organisms. Most unattractive. So I thought I'd paint it green so moss wouldn't show as much. I've chosen the same green as the veranda, a bit extreme but very brightening in the greyer months in the Finistere. It has totally transformed the terrace into a bright little space I really want to sit out on.

I took the car ferry from Roscoff last week and went to Dorset for the weekend. Had to get up really early to drive up from Quimper, and it's a very boring boat trip. But the sea was calm and the weather sunny, so once I was on my way it was OK. It's still a 12 hour trip from door to door though. Thank God for GPS! I forgot my road map of the UK and had to go into the depths of Devon to fetch two fleeces I'd ordered from a rare breeds farm near Okehampton. The lanes got so wild that one would have had to back for miles to let anything pass! The lanes were all lined with thousands of daffodils, quite beautiful. And from there home to Dorset.

My old Mum had celebrated her 92nd birthday the weekend previously. Doesn't she look GREAT? Nicholas and Marlena came down from London. And we had a nice family weekend not doing much, but doing it in brilliant sunshine. All weekend. Weren't we lucky? Nicholas took some really good photos, we all lost money on the Grand National, the F1 in Malaysia was cut short because of torrential rain, and we went out to lunch on Saturday which was a great success, Grama liked the restaurant!

On Sunday, we did lunch up at Mike's and Grama got to speak to Cecile, Aziz and Marius on Skype for the very first time. And on Monday I left and drove back home with all sorts of plants I'd pinched out of Grama's garden, a couple of seedling parasol pines, runner beans, fresh eggs for a month, and a dozen quincy which I reimported into France.

Youpi, my unsociable cat, who lives outside when I go away, went missing for two days after my return, that is, she never came back and I thought I'd seen the last of her, but she finally turned up, famished and thirsty and with a bleeding back paw. She's still growling at me whenever I touch her so it must hurt. I'll put a picture of her next post.

Happy Easter!