Conservation: Restauration

Another day, another renovation project. 
Sadly the gorgeous tiled patio of our conservatory is no more :-(    A decade of watering the sumptuous tropical planting has left the underfloor ply in a sorry state, and the tiles lifted or sank... we made
archeological digs into the floor/ceiling junction and the redesign of the surface will make the room a very different place.
And at Orsan, the restauration of the garden sculptures is in train

That's the way to do it

Love Will Tear Us Apart Again

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Holy Moshpits!

October and November - why do all the folk acts come to Brighton in a row? Fantastic but pricy! 

June Tabor and the Oyster Band played at St George's, Kemptown. Lovely band. Lovely venue. Together they do not work. 
We've seen June with Imagined Village, and always seen OB at jump-up-and-move places before, and this, their Reunion Tour, was a really dancey set... but no where to jig, let alone make big swings. Almost as though, if the audience came to their first tour 21 years ago, by now they would be in their dotage. Well maybe we are but we can still bop to the stunning crash-bang-wallop that is Freedom & Rain Revisited Ragged Kingdom


Bellowhead at the Corn Exchange - even stunning-ier! That's the way to do it... dance, dance, dance.
Two hours after the doors opened, the mighty 11 piece we'd all come to see hit the stage and all was well... the opening bars of Jordan, invitations to join in choruses, jumping in unison, wow...
So how come the JT&OB management got it sooo wrong? Same audience, judging by the  number of grey heads, Towersey Tshirts and ability to pay-a-lot-of-money. Average age was 45+, a lot of free bus passes.

...six fiddlers jumping...

Jon Boden imploring...

I love the way the sons of famous folk(wo)men get to carry on playing the chord structures that made their school fees possible.

Sunshine came softly...

November Sun at 9am, still coming into our east-facing conservatory, and with a gentler quality to it, raising the temperature gradually to a comfortable-enough-to-drink-tea-in 18 degrees (C).
At night it's about 10 degs, and the plants seem OK about it. The Lemon Tree (Eureka!) and the little stripey Orange are hardy to -10, so we're hoping it won't get down to that.
As a buffer zone this little suntrap is maintaining the inside of the house at a relatively stable 16 or 17, especially if we remember to close the door at night. It's quite nice, though, to walk on it barefoot, like when a quick trip to the bathroom is needed at 4am!

Beast, Beauty,

The train journey out of Paris takes about 5 hours to Perpignan, and it sweeps down through the whole of the length of France... over the grey Seine, alongside the sandy Loire, picking up the wide Rhone somewhere, eventually crossing its outlet near Nîmes and then the Aude somewhere south of Narbonne. Lots of tagging in the suburbs, the same names go out quite far - TPA, Sonic - some in beautiful swirly text, other marks like some seventies' album cover.  The eyes on the tanks of this sewage plant was just south of Paris - when we came back it was too dark to see where it was - haunting, nevertheless!

distractions at the sewage farm!

When you reach the Centre, the volcanos are luscious pointy hills with streaming clouds above them... soon after the roof tiles take on a pink hue, a half-tube shape, you know you are in the South. Baroque houses face the station in Nîmes and Beziers, palm trees in fruit, and the huge cathedral at Narbonne rises on the horizon. On the way back the lakes reflect their southern colours, flamingos stand on their one-legs and the sky turns a somersault. The tags from Perpignan all the way to here say "Krevet"... s/he gets about a bit!

Autumn in the Conflent

 Lots of fêtes - chestnuts, ewes and goats, new wine - any excuse really! Lovely community spirit where the "fêtes committee" and the mairie lay on roasted chestnuts and wine to celebrate the autumn, the halfterm holiday is a break for more people than just teachers.

Shops close for a week, parents take their kids out during the day, kicking leaves, walking the transhumance paths up to waterfalls...






The Olette Foire de l'Automne had guess-the-weight of the lovely pink-skinned Rouge de Roussillon sheep, "the one with the blue collar and the bell". Presumably the shepherd will prepare it for the pot and the freezer!
The shepherd turned out to be the young man we had walked the transhumance path with in June; his sheep had come home fatter, more delicious from the mountain grass and herbs.

A little trek up the Cami de Ramader, a slated path with a rise of 200 metres into the lime green, lemon and pink of the turning leaves. A stop at the bridge (de Llosa), a bit of cake and a sip of water, and the realisation that the sky was a bit darker grey than before, so we made a judicious exit from the valley. And then it didn't rain! And today it's been up to 20 deg C.

A last night's meal at the much-loved Le Café de la Paix... seiche à la planxa, beautifully garlicky.
Tomorrow - Paris...

Passionfruits on the Pergola

Chez nous in France, the tentative climbing of the passionflower from the garden next door that we welcomed has borne fruit! 

Having attached some of it to the canisse (a thin split bamboo screen) it was encouraged to spread across the roof of the terrasse, which it did with amazing speed in the summer. This week we took the canisse down, to prepare for the winter, and the network of trailing shoots are clearly established now. Maybe the vine will grow up and meet it next year! There are two - a white, and a black muscat.

We are hoping that there won't be any snow this winter, as it bent the pergola support last time, and killed the bougainvillea. We are trying with another one, placed in the sunniest spot on the terrasse. It had flowers earlier, but the very dry season since the summer has shrivelled many leaves in the garden including the honeysuckle. But a few days' worth of watering and this is looking better, the jasmine has perked up again, and the mint is a bit mintier. The pelargoniums from June are also still OK, hanging on the screen, protected a bit by the cooler air below.

Tiny mulberry seedlings have sprouted too, in with the mint. I add a new small tree in a pot - acacia pravissima, "Ovens Wattle"- indestructible!


A quick trip to Collioure yesterday... always lovely in the autumn & winter... very blowy indeed. 
This is one of my favourite views...

"When visiting the church you are asked to wear suitable clothing, do not smoke, leave outside dogs, cats and other animals - thank you"

In the meantime, the garden flourishes

Banana

Potiron Vif d'Etampes

The green bananas wait til next spring to be planted next to the yellow-leaved one, assuming it survives the winter again. Leeks from Poix's Sunday market are now 2cms across and thickening, tasty! Grey- green spears contrast with the fiery nasturtium Tom Thumb. Hidden in there too, burgundy beetroot amid purple cornflowers (Black Ball). The pumpkin peeks out from the top tier, its shoots tumbling over the edge of the wall, while the fruit itself sits, soaking up the late sun, glowing... Beans, what beans! Canadian Wonder, Hutterite Soup Bean, Selma Zebra, a lovely buttery Beurre de something, the climber Limka has done so much better than ever before.

leeks & cosmos

cordyline tops

The Cordyline sits in the centre of the sweep of ground between two pathways, its spiky tops creating a tropical fee to accompany the bananas, its old flower head drooping like little dates... at the second-to-top tier the Mediterranean garden nestles beneath the hedge: there's agave, yucca, quince, fig, lavender, marjoram, thyme, with the golden hop, the mountain ash and the yew flavouring it temperately. And the ivy - mounds of it, trees if it, long creeping strands of it, greeny globe flowers open now and buzzing with insects. It'll be cut once the buzz has gone... and that Sycamore - its days are numbered!