FRESH VEGETABLES, SUNSHINE and STONE CARVING

The lovely weather continues, I got quite burnt last Thursday when I gave a stone carving lesson all day on the terrace. My shoulders and neck are still sore. I'm very pleased with the works of art produced, really surprising, as they always are, since one has no way of knowing what's inside the stone and what the effect will be. Here are pictures of the best piece, a fish jumping out of a piece of rock, the only one that was completely finished. Click on the picture to get a close up view. I am giving another class next Saturday.

The week before last I had the visit of an English couchsurfer for three days. We knew each other from chatting on a couchsurfing forum, and as we had foreseen, we got on really well. And he very kindly finished painting my sitting room ceiling (a major step in the right direction for those who know my house!).

And here is a picture of the back of the sleeveless pullover I have knitted for Cécile (she requested it in winter, it's now summer as you will have realised... luckily, winter comes round again!). The front is plainer. It's a bit of a funny shape, and too short, but never mind, it'll keep the bit of her it covers nice and warm, it's cashmere (mostly). I'll send it to England, Cécile, since you are going soon, I'll save on postage!

My garden is growing, but needs a lot of water. I've planted melons, as I'm convinced the good weather is going to last until September. October, why not! I pick a handful of strawberries each day (but the blackbirds are having a feastday with them), and I have a few wild strawberries almost ready. Raspberries just have to ripen. My runner beans have not worked at all, but my French beans came up almost as soon as I planted them. Tomatoes, salads, artichokes, coriander, new potatoes, broad beans, I'm really enjoying the fruits of my labour, and just wandering around looking at it all grow. Here are a few photos.

First plum tomatoes

First baby potimarron





Very proud of this - first artichoke!

First blueberries

Coriander and new potatoes

First courgette

Michael and Steve, we were talking last time I was in Dorset about how Daddy would have loved new technology, computers, digital cameras, etc. I was mowing the other day, I have a little tiny Flymo - do you remember how excited he was when he first bought a Flymo? And when he got a microwave? He microwaved everything in sight! Sad he didn't live to see Facebook and Skype!

I've just returned from visiting a few Trait Breton carthorses and their foals. What beautiful animals. But, boy was it hot again, out in the middle of a field mid afternoon.

DID YOU HAVE A GOOD CHRISTMAS ?

I missed saying "Happy Christmas" to you all. So, did you have a nice Christmas? With good meals and lots of presents?

We did. I fetched Nicholas from Brest airport on Tuesday 21st, his birthday! He was one of the lucky ones to leave London and get to his destination, and on time if you please! We have been having a good, quiet time together, as we always do. With a series of excellent meals, no restaurants, we seem to be able to do better at home. What did you have for Christmas meals?

The temperatures are going up down, up down, we have lovely sunny days (although as usual the weather forecast for the Finistère is awful) but rather cold nights. I have to put thick socks on over my shoes to get across the terrace to the north side of the house, the one that leads to the garden, so that I don't slip and kill myself while peeing the dog.

My load of wood for the winter was delivered last week. All neatly cut into 40cm lengths, split and stacked on a pallet.  Last year it cost me 225€, expensive enough, this year it's 275€. Can't do without unfortunately: a woodburder means wood. That being said, my little house is lovely and warm.

I've finally got photos of my two grandsons wearing the sleeveless pullovers I knitted for them just before going to the States in September. I forgot to take photos of the finished product and had to wait for Cécile to put photos she had taken on her blog.

This week I have made quick and not very expensive curtains to block out the draft that comes up from the veranda into the sitting room in the evenings in winter. There is a sort of archway about 1m70 wide, and a couple of metres high. I bought a steel curtain rod and some rings with clips on them. The things to hold the rod up with are placed too high for me to screw them in, so I stuck them with super glue. Then I bought 6 metres of fleece, really cheap, in a nice off white. I cut the edge and tore it into two pieces 3m long, turned over the top into a pelmet of about 25cm and clipped it to the curtain rings! It trails on the ground and makes sure that drafts don't get under it, and it needs no hemming, it doesn't fray. I'm really pleased with the result, which took me a couple of hours in all, not even. It looks good and is very efficient, in fact, with the woodburner going, the sitting room is almost too warm now!

I can show you my pre-Christmas knitting, now the presents have been given. I did a jacket for Marius, with toggles, a sleeveless pullover for Leif, a bit pink, but I really need to knit pink sometimes and it's not easy having two grandsons. And a sleeveless pullover for my brother Michael. They all seem to have liked their presents!

So, on to food: for Nicholas' birthday we had a bottle of nice champagne, the most enormous snails, then fish, then a sort of pavlova with a difference (meringue, fresh heavy cream and raspberries in a champagne glass. For Christmas Eve, we had a plateau de fruits de mer, which actually almost went wrong, because the fishmonger seemed to have forgotten my order, and gave me all the shellfish unopened, and the fairly large lobster I had ordered turned into two very small ones, but it was all good, and too much, so last night we had the rest of  peeled shrimps, langoustines, a few praires topped with the meat from the tail of one of the lobsters in a cocktail sauce (fresh mayonnaise, a teeny bit of ketchup, tabasco and cognac) in a champagne glass, with a bit of salad at the bottom! For our Christmas lunch we had a glass of champagne with three frozen raspberries in it, a few nibbles, a shoulder of lamb with roast potatoes, roast parsnips and peas, and no dessert, not hungry enough. Before Christmas, Nicholas made me onion soup, lovely. And today he did me a lamb curry which was quite delicious, lovely not to have to cook!

Plateau de fruits de mer before I opened the oysters (there are all sorts of things hiding underneath...)

Lamb curry

 A bit of a blurry photo of onion soup

Salade tière de coquilles St Jacques

 Foie gras maison and champagne (with a bit of saucisson lurking in the middle)...

Lobster cocktail

On Christmas Eve, just after lunch, we took the car and went up into central Finistère, the Monts d'Arrée, to visit the Montagne St Michel and the prehistoric burial chamber (allée couverte) at Mougau Bihan. Nicholas was looking for photo material. There was a bitter wind, but lots of sun, and the Montagne St Michel was still covered in snow. Quite different from the summer painting trips that Yves and I often make.

Mougau Bihan, Finistère

Nicholas at the top of the Montagne St Michel

Ellie at the top of the Montagne St Michel

The path to the top of the Montagne St Michel, Finistère

This afternoon we went for a walk along the banks of the river Odet just outside Quimper, but it was bitterly cold. Then we went to the Anse St Laurent near Concarneau so that Nicholas could photograph old fishing boats that are falling apart on the mud flats. And now it's time to sit in front of the fire as darkness falls and catch up with my blog.

Done.

A very Happy New Year to all of you should I not manage to post again before then.



GARDEN AND ANIMALS

The cat stalking in my jungly garden

When it  was  so hot, I did homemade lemonade: a lemon cut into thin slices, a few dried scented rose petals from the garden, a good chunk of ginger cut into pieces, covered with a litre of boiling water. It turns out a delicate pink colour and is so good.

I've been knitting jazzy slipper socks for the Boukhelifa boys, not quite the time of year, but they'll be ready to take over with me when I go in September. I did these with just one ball of Noro Kureyon, and I've done myself a pair too, with a bit more wool than that!

I've been out of the pottery circuit for a while what with my trip to India and then school holidays here, I've now got a batch of things being completed that I either started before I went away or that I have done since. There are a lot of my garden bowls, that not everyone likes but that are very useful for miniature gardens, and putting keys in, and coarse salt in the kitchen, etc. There are a few little mini houses I experimented with, thinking they might be fun for Marius, but upon reflection, too fragile. And a lamp base in the shape of a sort of 1920s a bit art deco lady in a long skirt.  I'm quite pleased with this and now have to set about either making or finding the right sort of shade for it. Pictures will follow this week, nothing was ready to photograph last week.

A brave dachshund confronting the neighbour's cat with double glazed protection!

I have been walking Ellie on the opposite bank of the Odet, in Quimper, the side which is in fact nearer me. LocMaria. Down by the Quimper porcelaine works. You can't walk very far there, but it is quite lovely. There is a large field with three Pie Noire Breton cows, which have been given to the Ville de Quimper by various people, and are part of a conservancy project, first of all of Pie Noire cows, then of the banks of the Odet which they graze. They have their identity cards pinned up with their names, origins, character etc. Then there was a lovely little enclosed garden near where I park, filled with gloriously scented roses and jasmine, open to the public and maintained by the Ville de Quimper. I must say we are very lucky to have so many things at our disposal, paid for and tended by the council. Our local taxes are heavy, true, but at least we see something for them.

My carpenter came at the end of last week and put up a little gate at the head of the stairs down into my garden. He took pity on me and did this for free, including making the gate, so that Ellie could be contained on the terrace. It has changed both of our lives! She can run in and out and play the fool endlessly, I don't have to keep an eye  on her the whole time, I can leave the door open when it's warm, and eat on the terrace and sunbathe. For her, it is almost a substitute for her walk, she is so active, but not for me unfortunately!

I have discovered this year a sort of allium, I think, which must have self seeded from somewhere all over my garden. Wild garlic? Its leaves smell of it. Very pretty white and slightly pink flowers.

And an update on my palm flowers.

AUTHENTIC PORRIDGE

This morning I found that the little milk I had left in the fridge had gone off, so I mixed up a small quantity of organic powdered ewe's milk that I keep as an ingredient for making milk bath. It was very good, and eating it on my porridge, I reflected that this was probably the combination that crofters of old probably used, since they would have been far more likely to keep sheep than cows. There, my authentic Sunday morning moment...

I brought back dozens of tiny champignons de Paris that I had made in pottery this week. Why make mushrooms, you may wonder? Well, I'm blatantly copying an idea I saw on etsy.com, but not for sale, of course. I'm making a moss garden for my old Mum for her birthday at the end of the month. Difficult to know what to give a mum of her age, and I thought she'd appreciate the "I made it all by myself" feel. In fact I've made several. I bought glass containers of all shapes and sizes on ebay in January, some with lids, some without. I made the mushrooms (an essential ingredient: one tiny mushroom) in February. And the other day I raided my local nursery for attractive moss I'd seen growing on the earth around repotted saplings. And the result is rather fetching, I think! Very "I made it all by myself", in any case.

I also crocheted a cotton oven cloth yesterday, to replace the one I've been using these twenty years and which, although I was very sad to put it in the bin, really had to go. This one is nice and bright and springlike, but the photo is a little pale.

My camelias have suffered a little from the frost these last two weeks, but I managed to get a couple of photos before they did. Camelias are lovely, their fallen blooms, which go squishy and stick to everything, are not. I'm being very careful to pick them up as they fall this year.

The first early cherry has started to flower at the bottom of the garden. Its flowers are so very small that you have to be within a couple of metres to see them at all, but they are another sign of Spring and it's all very heartening.

Oslo has been very ill but is better. She looks quite normal again except for lumps and bumps all over. I may even, weather permitting, try taking her to the beach this week.

NEW POTTERY, NEW KNITTING

Here are a few of the things I've completed recently in my pottery class. Doesn't look like much, but I really needed soap dishes at home, rather than leaving sludgy bars of soap on the edge of the sink/bath/washbasin. I made three, but I think I could have made half a dozen. They also helped me to do a few colour tests. And they've got little feet like japanese dishes.

I also made a "boîte à trésors" for Marius in the shape of a big fat mushroom.

And I've finally listed a couple of pieces of knitting on etsy: http://shahdlou.etsy.com/ . More listings to come.

Which all explains why I don't get out into the garden much.

AND STILL MORE SOCKS...

Here's the latest pair that has just gone off in the post to Marius in America. I've decided to sell these (not his, but a series like them) on Etsy.

It's been warming up a bit during the day in Brittany, but not at night when it freezes most of the time. What a strange winter! I took Oslo to the beach last week, picked up a few cockles for my lunch. She enjoyed it, if a little painfully, she does have a problem walking on sand now. She paddled a bit but didn't swim (I think the water must have been awfully cold...). And I've started to garden a bit, only in pots around the two terraces, tiding up, planting up a couple of things in prettier pots. There are a few snowdrops out, and my spring camelias are taking the place of the winter one (Yuletide, a lovely red one with small flowers in profusion and dark green leaves, lovely at Christmas) which flowered in November, December and January. Camelias are so cheerful and so little trouble. You can have one or other in bloom from October to April.

MORE SOCKS

I am part of a "birthday swap" and since mine is in January, I was the first to receive presents from the other 11 participants. I still find it interesting to think of the trouble one takes over a parcel for someone one has never met and is never likely to meet. The poring over their likes and dislikes to find the special something that will give pleasure. And the hours of work to get it finished in time.

I received a very mixed bunch, but almost everyone had exercised great imagination and care. I have favourites, which I cannot of course mention, have a look for yourselves at the photos on my other blog http://swappitydooda.blogspot.com/

Now it's my turn, and February's birthday was right at the beginning of the month. I made her a pair of slipper socks (my speciality - see photo below of my son-in-law, daughter, son and grandson all wearing my socks!) in chocolate pure wool (her favourite colour). I bought a packets of four different varieties of sunflower seeds for her summer garden, and I added a small pot of my own home-made organic lip balm. She seemed pleased. But you can never tell really.

It snowed again in the Finistere yesterday. Not much, but unusual to have snow so often, we're not used to it here! Nicholas and Marlena managed to get off the ground at Heathrow yesterday on their way to spend their two week holiday in Thailand - they must be exploring Bangkok as I write! No snow there...

I did a day's course with the German calligraphy lady again yesterday. It's such a beautiful, restful atmosphere, her lovely studio gives onto a wonderful garden filled with her husband's weird and colourful totems and sculptures and we work to mediaeval music in utter calm. I started a quadriptych (is that in the dictionary?), four 16cm squares, each with a calligraphied capital letter in the middle. I studied the dictionary before going to find good and meaningful four letter words - there are quite a lot, I hesitated between BLEU (which can also be BLUE), ENVY (all green...), BACH (all musical), CHAT (French cats), LOVE (a bit ordinary), and chose in the end ROSE (a bilingual option, which can also be anagrammed if the letters are hung in different orders, into EROS, SORE, OSER...). I would have preferred to work on canvas but was not given that option. So I wrote on very thick watercolour paper which now has to be stuck onto "carton plume" (what's THAT in English???). I first did a pale green wash, then inked in the letters (with a paintbrush, a calligraphy pen cramps my style immediately). I then washed the inside of the capitals with slighty darker shades of green. Then I gilded little tiny parts of the letters in pink leaf. Then I added three tiny roses to each letter (I'd traced green climbing stemps around the letters off which the roses bloom). And then it was time to come home!

So now I have to finish them off and give them a much "rosier" look, and then mount them for hanging. Looks good, I'm quite pleased with it all. I'll put a photo here when it's completed.