This is not a lounging holiday

 

11^th September

More gunshots this morning. A hunter parked at the end of the lane, and I didn’t want to take Perla out while he was firing over the fields. The owners of the mill tell stories of hunters shooting each other more than the game they are chasing, which sounds both reassuring, thinking of the wildlife, and a little worrying when considering our own safety. We know the man who, with the help of his dog, tracks down the animals they do injure but don’t kill. He makes sure they do not suffer.

We’re starting on the roundup of “last tasks” – shaking out beds, cushions, sofas, sweeping floors, dusting, last minute washing of socks and knickers to get us home feeling clean. Dh has trundled the BBQ down to the Earth Room, (which I am told has now been renamed the West Room) and is currently out on the tractor cutting the grass. I am still dead-heading lavender. Tomorrow the Great Packing Adventure begins.

The heat has been so intense these three weeks with all but two days in the high thirties that working after 11.30 was impossible, so there are some things we did not get done that we would have liked to do. Our holidays here are not the lounge around the pool kind. Dh sanded and revarnished or Danish-oiled the fence around the pool and the balcony fence. I pruned the garden that skirts the pool (and got well and truly bitten doing it!) and we both hacked away at the vegetation so there is a wider view of the field from the bolly. The pictures are a Before and After record. We wanted to trim the laurels at the back of the mill, take some of the ivy off the trees and tidy the creeper in the east patio, but it wasn't to be. 

Shopping en France

According to the thermometer in Lalinde, it was 39 degrees today (22nd June) at 11am. Still no rain, no wind, no clouds. It was joy to drive to Bergerac and then on to Lalinde because we could enjoy the air conditioning in the car! So cool, so wonderful. 

I wanted to buy fly repellent, skin lotion and anti-moustiques cream, plus a bottle of wine to replace the one we drank the first night we were here. The wine was the easiest thing to find in the Bergerac wine section because the bottle was on display, but I failed absolutely to find a Marie Rose mosquito repellent, though I did find what I think were lotions against head lice. Not quite what I wanted.

Then the fly spray; there was one here last year, so I know they exist but in the whole of Monsieur LeClerc’s fine supermarket I could not find a similar household spray. I came out with something called Stop Insects that promised to kill mosquitos, flying ants, cockroaches and the like. Then I went to look for the apres sun lotion. Again zilch. Sun tanning lotion everywhere, but no apres soleil in sight. I gave up and bought a tube of good old Nivea to stop my skin wrinkling up in all this heat.

At home with the dictionary I discovered the Stop Insect was not quite what I thought. It kills the creepy crawlers, but by spraying the curtains, window uprights, doors, tables, pool surrounds etc etc. Not sure what to do with it now.

On the wildlife front I found the desiccated corpse of a five inch lizard languishing in the bottom of an empty blue glazed planter. I wonder if I could fill these somehow, so that they are not death traps? Poor thing must have starved to death. At least I could turn them upside down.

Another problem is that the men who come and remove the dustbin bags have not appeared so far. We remember they came on Wednesday around 10.30, but something must have happened to the schedule, or else they’re not doing it in this heat. It really is extraordinary.

Night activity

the bolly

Another day with 36 degrees forecast. We are longing for rain! Or at least cooler days, some cloud, some wind. We’re not eating much in the way of dinners, but Magnums from the freezer are most welcome mid-afternoon. That’s when I swim. 

Yesterday the tiles around the pool were too hot to walk on, so it was a mad dash out of the shade of the bolly to the edge of the pool! If this weather continues, and it is forecast at over 30 until next Monday, I shall be an accomplished swimmer before we go home.

The late evenings are very pleasant. We switch between the bolly and the balcony in the hope of catching a breeze. The farmer turned up at 10pm last night, headlights on his tractor and we thought he must be about to move his hay bales. He did the turning and baling after eight o'clock at night earlier this week and finished with two tractors whirling around in the dark with headlights glaring. Rather like watching huge fireflies flitting about. If he did, he took only one (we couldn’t actually see what he was doing because of the rather large and healthy pine tree) before he roared off back up the hill to the north. Next morning the bales were still in the field.

Two mornings ago I saw a young fox racing away from us as Tim and I returned to the house, and yesterday evening it was a small deer that legged it at the first sight of us as we left the house. Tim saw neither – some dog he! I’m pleased, actually, because if he had seen it, he’d have chased it. He nearly broke his lead this morning to attack something (unseen) in the hedge at the end of the drive. Naturally, I saw nothing, and he never caught anything. Maybe it was the scent of the deer. Or the fox.

I’ve finished reading a Jack Reacher I brought with me – Without Fail. Interesting story but a tad long-winded on the explanations, but isn't that typical Lee Child? It struck me yesterday that he's becoming more like Sherlock Holmes in the way he makes his deductions about what villains will do or why they do it. Intriguing to read, but must be annoying to have someone like that in real life! I found one of his titles  I hadn't read - Night School - on the shelves here, so I'm reading that now.

Hotter still!

33 degrees forecast yesterday, and 38 actually recorded. Today 35 is forecast, so we’ll see how high it goes. We get up early, around half six and I walk Tim well before seven. Then we do everything to keep the house as cool as we can. After that it is read, relax, swim and sunbathe – and go indoors when the heat is too much!

The second edit on Alba is Mine is going well. DH did a second day working on the overgrown hedge and has given himself a day off today. Actually he is on his way to the supermarket to do a grocery shop as we’ve eaten everything in the house. Tim is squealing as the car goes down the drive – worried that his dad is going and might not come back Or – why am I not going with you, dad?

I’ve been reading After You by Jojo Moyes and enjoyed it. It’s the same kind of writing style as Barbara Erskine – easy, effortless, uncontrived yet the reader keeps wanting to turn pages. 

The pic? That's my shadow taken yesterday!

Stormy times

After days of 35 and 38 degrees we woke at 4.45am to thunder and lightning which rolled around for an hour gave a couple of monster cracks which sent Tim scuttling out of his basket and into my arms - and put the electricity out. That meant dh had his trek downstairs to flip the switch again. Those last two cracks were the end of it but we have half the sky dark and grey and the other bright blue. Odd. Do you remember I sent a sock up into a tree and it stuck there? Well, the wind has brought the sock down to ground again in the last half hour. So we don't know if we're going to get a thunderstorm or not - so far there has been no rain - also very odd.

The picture was an early morning shot a couple of days ago when the sun was rising and lifting the mist off the lake.

Hot Days

The time is 7 55am and I'm sitting here writing my blog with all the windows and doors open and the sun is beating down. Goodness knows what the outside temperature got up to yesterday - we stayed indoors where the living room temperature rose to 26 degrees C. This morning it is 22 degrees. Consider that when we arrived it was 16-17 degrees....and that the mill has three foot thick stone walls. Wi Fi is only available in the living room, (or downstairs in the mill room) because the walls are too thick. Evidently the floor is not quite so strong!

The farmers work early, knock off in the middle of the day and start again about seven in the evening and yesterday they had my sympathy because it was still too hot to sit out even then. I felt some sympathy for the tennis players, too. Though I have to say that Serena gave a most convincing display of being about to faint away until she needed to hit a convincing shot and then all her reflexes kicked in and the most complicated shot was executed with ease.

I have been diligently working away for a couple of hours every morning on The CRAIGSMUIR AFFAIR and have reached the last stages of publication via Kindle. Things appear to be going well and as long as the Table of Contents comes up as I expect, then I'm done. Publication Day is the 20th July.

Happy Holidays

So far, we haven't seen a single mouse. There are few lizards, which Tim chases, so they keep out of his way. I’m pleased to report he hasn’t caught one yet.

The kites, the herons, the foxes are still about, and there are rumours of “a big stag” wandering about the area. DH saw a roe deer walking down the drive early one morning. Evidently there are red deer here, too.

Yesterday I cleaned the steps from the upper level to the lower patio. There were so many ferns and weeds choking the steps that it was only a matter of time before someone broke an ankle. The wild strawberry plants spread out tendrils that can catch the unwary. In the fortnight we’ve been here, the weeds had grown long the edge of the bolly, so I culled those too, and then started on the drive. An excess of energy! Now part of the drive is as wide as a three-lane motorway in comparison to the unculled half. I think the driver of the loader that brought the digger would have liked the whole of the drive done. He's taken to driving across the field instead! I hope the farmer doesn't mind.

Two diggers worked all day Friday and made huge changes to the field and pond. Saturday was quiet, and so was Sunday. DH found a small frog in the pool filter Saturday morning, whirling round and round in a six-inch circle. He was dead, but whether it was the dizziness or the chlorine, who knows? Sunday morning another frog was motionless at one of the filter inlets, but he was luckier. The filters were switched off, and he was still alive. I suspect there will be an outrage of frogs unless something is done to control them. We’re told that there should be carp or pike in the pond to eat the frogs. 

The weather has been glorious since we got here, but this afternoon we were melting in the heat when it suddenly began to rain. Oh, the relief! It didn’t rain long, and not very hard, but it certainly lowered the temperature. There are thunderstorms forecast for tonight or tomorrow morning, and I’m looking forward to them. In the middle of the day we’re comatose, Tim included. It makes me long for rain and cool air. When we go for a walk, we creep from one patch of shade to the next and amble about when we’re in the sun. Even at 7.30pm we come home longing for a cold shower. 

The thunder and lightning came overnight and woke us up. It also switched all the power off in the house. DH had to go downstairs, torch in hand, to throw the switch again. Creepy, with thunder outside!

Today, after the storm, it is grey and cloudy. Half a dozen baby frogs, some less than an inch long, were in the pool. It's beginning to look like a plague of frogs now that the mice have vanished.  

 One digger has been removed from the site, but otherwise, no work in progress this Monday morning. Annoying not to have it finished today. I shall concentrate on Matho and his edit, which is coming along in a very satisfactory way. I’m not rushing it. I want to get it right. The internet connection here fails with appalling regularity from midday onwards, so if I don’t get my PR and social networking done before them, it’s gone for the day. Must be very annoying for the locals, and certainly makes me appreciate what I have back home.

Also, Wimbledon begins today! Yippee! Wine, Pringles and Wimbledon! What could be better?

Working in the heat

If you like the kind of holiday that visits lots of new places and eats in lots of different restaurants, then this isn’t the spot for you. The mill is set beside a small river in a valley north east of Bergerac and there are no diversions anywhere close at hand. If we want a good meal we would drive to Lou Peyrol, but because this is Tim’s first visit to France, and he’s not very old yet, we will forgo that pleasure. Leaving him on his own in a strange house would not be kind. Apart from that, we mow grassland, hack at the accumulated greenery, divert springs, build bonfires and cook our food on the barbie. I have to say it is healthy food, too. DH did the shopping last week, and to this day, a sweet biscuit has not passed my lips. He didn’t buy anything from the patisseries counter, either. So the diet has been fresh meat, salads and fruit. Oh, plus a morsel of cheese with coffee.

The mill’s owners have not been here for six months due to a health problem, now happily solved, and boy! does it show. I swear trees have grown twenty feet since we were here. It doesn’t help that we didn’t come last year because we’d just got Tim, so we are looking at two years growth and change. Some trees have died, some have fallen, a lake – a hundred feet, not yards as I think I said earlier – has been formed. Lots of change, yet everything is the same, except for the pool.

Left unattended for six months, a pool of sludgy green slime had collected in the pool cover.  Once the cover was off, the pool had to be cleaned, scoured, hoovered and the filter system has been running constantly since we got here. “Three days,” they said, “and it will be clear. You should be able to see the bottom.” 

Well, we can just see the bottom of the pool now, but the water still isn’t crystal clear. It seems to me that pools are a lot of work.  “If you are here all the time, no problem,” we were told. “If you leave them, much work.”

We were gently kippered yesterday, and it looks like the process will continue today. A man has come to burn les bois. There’s a huge stack of dead wood in the middle of the field. Dead trees, odd fallen branches and no doubt some rubbish lurking in the middle. Within minutes of this man’s arrival there was a huge bonfire and clouds of smoke coming back toward us on the breeze. He stayed with it for four hours, patrolling to see the fire didn’t get out of hand. At midday he left, and I should think he was pounds lighter than when he arrived. So much heat! I was perspiring just sitting in the sun. I stood on our balcony and watched the local farming family picking their asparagus by hand and felt hot just watching them.

Heat and Light

Fireplaces have been found in English castles as early as 1081, but they were unlike modern fireplaces in that they projected out into the room they heated, and they didn’t have a chimney. The smoke escaped through small holes in the external wall at the back.

Harbottle

By the early twelfth century builders had devised a flue that carried smoke to an external chimney on the roof. By the fourteenth century fireplaces lost their projecting hoods and were recessed into the wall, usually on a long wall, and often off-centre, so they were closer to the “higher” end of the hall. In France, the practice was to place the fireplace behind the dais. Decoration included abstract patterns cut into the stone in the twelfth century and heraldry in the later middle ages. The decoration of fireplaces never transferred to internal doorways in English architecture, possibly because wall hangings and tapestries often obscured doorways. In direct contrast, the French habit, commonplace by the fifteenth century, was to extensively decorate door mouldings.

Lighting was difficult in castles. Most light sources were portable, either suspended as chandeliers of wood, brass or iron. Small wall niches are found in stone walls of corridors and latrines. Lamps could be mounted on projecting brackets in smaller chambers, usually to either side of the fireplace.

Of course, like everything else, there are castles, and castles. The big ones, like Warkworth in Northumberland, had sophisticated living areas, but small castles at the business end of things, like Harbottle, also in Northumberland and much closer to the border with Scotland, had few amenities. I’ve talked about Harbottle before on this blog but not about Warkworth. I’ll save that for the next post.

You can't trust the weather

Yesterday we sweltered in 31 degrees, so hot that the slightest exertion had us sweating, and walking any distance was very tiring. Then about 8.30pm last night it began to rain, the temperature dropped and it stayed cold today. We went for a brisk walk uphill wearing anoraks - and were glad of them.
We passed this building on our ramble. A rural gite - soft gee sound - so no doubt we could stay there if we wished. No need - we're very happy in the mill and there seems little or no sign of mice this year. Last year, as readers of this blog will remember, we had mice popping into and out of sofas, through cracks we couldn't find, eating crumbs off the breakfast bar and one unfortunate little creature got trapped in the toaster.
The stream at the bottom of the field was very low yesterday, almost dry in places, with only the thinnest trickle still running. Today it is almost back to normal levels, so the fish may survive. I can hear the wild ducks quacking as I type, but it's no good going to see what's up. They're so wild they take off when we're twenty yards away - and give us a fright. Tomorrow we'll have to go and seek more food. Maybe a trip into Bergerac. At least the weather forecast is good.

Travelling on

A final picture to say goodbye. We set off for home in the morning, stay overnight at St Malo and catch the ferry back to Portsmouth on Tuesday morning. Then its the long drive all way back to the north, so we won't be home till - possibly, depending on traffic flow and hold ups - late afternoon, early evening.

The weather is hotter than ever today. Even Sam the labrador is exhausted walking in the sun.

Tomorrow promises to be hot, too, with temperatures on the Loire hitting 32 degrees. But eventually we will have to adjust to cooler temperatures.