Weather, wine and thunderstorms

 31^st August

Dead mouse floating in the pool this morning. Where it came from we don’t know. It wasn’t there first thing. I only noticed it while we were pulling weeds and trimming the lavender. The temperature is still in the thirties, with brilliant sunshine, so not a lot of work is being done after mid-morning. Yesterday morning a fox walked across the garden, bold as brass at half nine in the morning.

1^st September

Yesterday we drove into Vergt and detoured by the household waste bins as we had a week’s worth in three separate categaries – paper, glass and household waste. Everything else is supposed to be composted. Every commune has a designated bin area and every householder has to buy a pass keycard that unlocks the household bin. The other two can be used without the card. Absolutely no rubbish is collected from the home now. (It used to be picked up from the end of the drive once a week, but no longer.)

The detour meant we had a slightly longer drive than usual. At this time of year the fields are full of sunflowers and sweet corn, both of which grow taller than five feet. This year they are poor crops because of heat and lack of water. The sunflower heads are half the normal size and the sweetcorn is dry and shrivelled with hardly a corn cob to be seen.

It must be heart-breaking for the farmers. They bought seed early in the year, ploughed the land, planted the seed and watched it begin to grow. When we were here in April I walked Perla early one morning, turned the corner onto the St Laurant road and saw a thin bright ribbon of green shining in the sun. It was the first sign of the sweet corn breaking through the soil. If I can find that picture I will load it when I get back home. After all that effort, money spent on seed and petrol, his crop has come to nothing. He will be lucky if there is anything to feed to his cattle this winter. I don’t know how the strawberry growers got on, for the season seems to be over here.

Last night a tick attacked Perla. She felt it and ran away from it, and kept on doing that. At first I thought flies bothered her, but in the end I examined her carefully and found the large grey thing gripped onto her back leg just where the long hair curves over her ankle. Dh removed it and I bathed the wound. After that, she cuddled into us and seemed more comfortable. The tick now lives in the septic tank!

2nd September

Two rolls of thunder at 5am this morning and then a heavy downpour. I got up to shut the window in the living room in case it was slanted to the west, but all seemed well, and I shut it anyway.

For a little light reading I dipped into A South Wind through the Kitchen (Elizabeth David) and looked up wine. Every kitchen, says the author, should hold a bottle of red and of white wine and to remember that the wine is cooked, so that the alcohol is volatilized (if only I knew exactly what that meant) and only the wonderful flavour remains. For short cooking dishes, reduce the wine to half the quantity by fast boiling.

Abandon the cabbage water, gravy browning and cornflour when making gravy, she says; instead, strain off the fat from the roasting tin, pour half a glass of any wine in and scrape up the juice of the meat, let it sizzle for a minute or two, add a little water, cook gently for another two minutes and your gravy is ready.  It sounds very much what my mother did except she had no wine and used said gravy browning. I guess I still do the same, but occasionally I add red wine.

If you make the mistake of adding white wine to Moules Mariniere, Ms David says you will find the whole dish turns “a rather disgusting blue.” She adds that cider is excellent for cooking white fish and mussels, ham and rabbit as long as it is draught or vintage cider.

The wine of this south west region has been known and loved for 700 years. The Pechamant is our local wine appellation though there are eight others in the area. Pechamant make fully dry reds which require aging, so I have to confess that we haven’t bought any. Aging wine is not for us. We prefer the type that needs to be drunk now.  We like Muscadet-Sevre-et-Maine 2021 from the Loire region and a Bordeaux Superieur 2020. Mind, it is 13.5% proof and after two glasses I’m either madly cheerful or asleep.