How we managed without Alan Titchmarsh and the ‘Ground Force’ Team

Back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, British TV had a bit of a love affair with makeover programmes ( ‘makeover’, in French, is ‘relooker’).  ‘Changing rooms’ made stars of Laurence Llewellyn Bowen and Linda Barker and the MDF industry. A little later gardens all over the UK started sprouting decking after their owners had watched a series or two of ‘Ground Force’, with Alan Titchmarsh and Tommy Walsh for the women, and the famously bra-less Charlie Dimmock attracting male viewers.

Since we bought this house, we’ve been busy ‘Changing Rooms’ too, but only more recently turned our attention to the back yard. And now that too has its own bit of decking, thanks to our ‘Ground Force’ of two + the demolition team back in April. It’s still a work in progress.  The awful oil tank has been ripped out (it’s found a new home in Belesta) and been replaced by a young olive tree.  We have to source garden soil for the raised bed that we’ll use for herbs and good timber to finish the top off as an impromptu seat.  There’s a pergola to build, for shade, and the knotty question of covering the concrete still remains.  It’s too deep to dig up, several builders assure us.

But we’re proud of our progress so far.  Watch the slide show and see what you think.

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Emergency – Ward 7

Well, on Tuesday I nearly claimed on Malcolm’s life insurance.  We had a very scary day at the end of which Mal was in intensive care in hospital in Toulouse:  so the first thing to say is that he’s now OK, in the sense of being back at home, functioning and cheerful, and no longer quite literally at death’s door.

He’d complained of feeling peculiar after breakfast, but put it down to a caffeine OD.  He worked like stink all morning, knocking mortar from an old wall, and much more difficult than it sounds, as it wasn’t so much mortar as ancient concrete.  So he was tired at lunchtime, but then complained of chest pains, and sweat poured from him.  I started checking up my fears on the internet, and rang 118, as well as some friends, who hurtled over immediately, even though it was the sacred French lunch break.  Though I’d been worried, I wasn’t unduly, but Francis later told me he was really scared at the concretey colour of Mal’s face and his description of his symptoms.

The sapeurs pompiers came (ambulance and fire is a sort of joint service here.  As in English rural areas, it’s staffed by on-call volunteers), as did the local community constable, and they crashed around the living room making lots of noise and asking questions as they pulled out all their equipment and gave him oxygen.  I didn’t realise at the time they were doing anything really useful, but in fact they saved his life, and were much praised by the specialists in Toulouse who looked after him later.  All the same, in their zeal, they gave him a a bit of a slap in the kisser as they strapped him with great gusto into his stretcher, and, as I later discovered, carefully removed a (wide) door off its hinges in their efforts to manoeuvre him  outside the house.

Not Mal's ambulance: you didn't think I'd be out there taking photos, surely?

They were supposed to await the doctor and nurse coming from Foix, but decided to save time by getting him into the ambulance (bright red!) and starting off.  Luckily the doctor and nurse arrived just then, in gleaming white operating theatre type garb. It was the doctor’s job to decide where to send him, and I was a bit shocked when he decided not for our local hospital in Lavelanet, not even for the big departmental one in Foix, but for one in Toulouse, the Polyclinique du Parc.  After, I learnt that it is practice to go for the centre of excellence as first choice, rather than somewhere that may not prove to be quite state-of-the-art enough.  At the time, I found it a scary decision.

This team was with Mal throughout his journey.  Emergency siren blaring, driving at full speed, they nevertheless took their turn and joined quite a queue to get through the motorway toll – so French.

He was overwhelmed with specialist care on his arrival, and indeed throughout his stay.  He had a blood clot blocking a main artery, and so they operated immediately, removed the clot, scaping clean the artery walls and permanently enlarging the artery with a stent.  He was conscious throughout and watched with interest as they manoeuvred a tube inside his arm from his wrist to his chest.  The various sensations he experienced – hot, cold, discomfort, were never painful, he said.

Later, Francis and I got to see him in his rather luxurious quarters with en-suite bathroom (Room 07, in fact): he was wired up to all kinds of equipment, his body an artwork of electrodes and patches, but looking much more like his normal self. He remained like this, his body mechanisms monitored and tested every second of the day and night, until the moment he left on Thursday morning.  He wasn’t allowed to leave until he’d read two booklets and passed a test on whether he’d understood the contents.  All in French, of course.  Do you know the English for ‘infarctus du myocarde’?   No, thought not – put your hand down now Kalba.

The just-vacated hospital bed

So….it’s been a bit of an unlooked for insight into French health care.  It confirmed all the positive things we’d heard, apart from one thing.  The food was, how to put it gently, somewhat mediocre.  But he’s happy to return in September, to go through it all again with Artery Number Two.

Christmas Hooch

Young walnuts on the tree

Léonce has a walnut tree outside her house.  On the 24th June, she picked just 40 baby walnuts.

Why 24th June?  Well, it’s traditionally Midsummer Day, celebrated here by huge pagan bonfires, but named for John the Baptist whose birthday it’s said to be (le Feu de la St. Jean).  On this day, summer fruits are at their most perfect, and just asking to be picked.  So they say.

And why pick the nuts when they’re still green, the fruit within unformed? It’s to make a Christmas treat – vin de noix.  This year, Léonce asked me to come and be part of her select manufacturing team of two.

Spices at the ready

When I arrived at her house, with my demijohn (or bonbonne), red wine and eau de vie, her kitchen table was already crowded with all the other ingredients we needed:

Brown sugar cubes – Oranges – Star Anise – Vanilla – Cinnamon sticks

Cloves – Nutmeg – Peppercorns.

They don't look much like walnuts, do they?

I got the job of cutting the walnuts into four.  You need rubber gloves for this.  Without them, your fingers would be stained a vivid orangey yellow, like those of a lifelong heavy smoker.

These are the hands that cut the nuts.....

Meanwhile, Léonce sliced oranges, measured and crushed spices, and opened bottles of wine – we needed 4 litres each, and one litre of eau de vie.

Finally we were ready.  We pushed the walnut segments into our large jars, followed by chunks of orange, the sugar cubes, and then the spices.  All those bottles of wine, all that eau de vie glugged down to mix with everything else, and then all we had to do was cork our bonbonnes, and lug them to a dark cool storage room.

in goes the wine....

We’ll leave them there for 6 weeks for the flavours to blend and develop, then we’ll strain and bottle our concoctions, and leave them again to mature as long as possible.  Don’t do as I do.  Every time I pass, I uncork the bonbonne and have another quick sniff.  Quite wonderful.

You’re not expecting vin de noix from me in your Christmas stocking this year are you?  Oh no, sorry, that’s far too soon.  It’ll be Christmas 2011 at the earliest.  It takes a long time to produce a decent vin de noix.

So here’s the recipe…

Vin de noix

The recipe: french version

40 green walnuts, each chopped into 4

40 brown sugar cubes

1 orange, chopped into chunks, peel and all

4 cloves

1 cinnamon stick

½ tsp. grated nutmeg

½ tsp. black pepper

½ tsp. vanilla essence, or a small vanilla pod

2 star anise, crushed

4 litres of red wine (13 – 14%)

1 litre eau de vie de fruits (40%)

Put the lots into a demi-john and leave for 40 days.  Filter and bottle and leave to mature for at least a year.  The older the better.

A table full of good things and ready for action

Spice

Yesterday, it was the last day of term at Clé des Chants, one of the choirs I belong to.  As usual, we finished the year with a shared meal.

In the course of the evening, I was chatting to Bernard and Pierrot, mildly teasing them that as usual, the women had cooked food to bring, while the men had brought the wine.  After they’d defended themselves with some vigour, they asked me about English food.

I always find this question quite difficult to respond to, now that we English are more likely to sit down to spaghetti Bolognese, a Chinese-style stir-fry, or a pungent curry, than steak and kidney pudding with two veg. followed by jam roly-poly and custard.  So I talked about the English love affair with curry, and said how we liked ’em spicy.

Bernard: ‘Oh, cooked with saffron – that sort of thing’

Me: ‘No – chillies, cumin, turmeric, ginger – that sort of thing’

Bernard: ‘In that case, I had a curry once, chilli con carne I think it was called.  Didn’t like it.’

Which is, in one way, surprising. The French colonial heritage means that the warm, rich flavours Morocco, Algeria & Tunisia – tagines and couscous are now a standard and much appreciated part of French cuisine.

Still, you couldn’t call these dishes mouth-burningly hot.  Any more than the curries served in this part of France are,  to the English palate. ‘Careful! It’s lethal’, you’ll be warned, as a tempting plate is set before you.  ‘Erm, thanks.  This is a jolly nice stew’ is not the correct response.

PS, and nothing to do with spices at all.  If the French have not embraced curries, they have fallen in love with ‘le crumble’, and whole recipe books are devoted to the subject.  We were delighted to pass a pâtisserie in Agen the other day, with lots on display. They were helpfully labelled ‘Grumble’.

Emily, Sophie and the Crapahut Experience

Sophie & Emily at Puivert

Emily (that’s our daughter, the 21 year old) and her friend Sophie have been to stay.  After all that cold, rain and gloom, they brought the sunshine with them, and a holiday mood.  They quite rightly wanted sightseeing, markets to mooch round, and sunbathing opportunities.  Most afternoons, we finished off with a swim at either Montbel or Puivert.

Emily starts off

Yesterday was their last day, and they wanted Action, with a capital A. We’d seen the publicity for something new: CRAPAHUT PARC AVENTURE – a sort of mile-high adventure playground in the forest at Fontestorbes, near Belesta.

It’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder why on earth you’d pay to be scared witless.  It involved serious safety harnesses, and a training session on clipping karabiners onto safety wires so you were secured at all times.

…and the journey begins

Malcolm and I watched from below.  Often, the two were so high up in the tree canopy we could barely see what they were up to.  Whizzing through the forest on zip wires seemed to be the pay-off for challenges such as rope bridges, swaying wooden fences with equally swaying footholds.  High up on the wooden security platform between each section, they had time to contemplate the scariness of the next challenge whilst unclipping and reclipping their karabiners.  Sadly, my camera battery gave out after they’d gone round the first of three sections – the ‘easiest’ one, so I can’t show you the scariest bits of all: such as swinging on a rope, Tarzan-like, to a large vertically strung net, which you have to climb along, crab-like, to reach the next point of safety.

A zip-wire experience

Or the longest zip wire of all, so much higher than the others, which sent them screaming through the trees, across a river, through more quite dense forest, before they disappeared from view.  They came back into view as they returned across the river via precarious rope bridges and swinging platforms

Emily walks the not-so-tight rope

It was fun and a challenge for them.  But it was fun for us too, the two wimps left below.  We wandered through the forest following their progress and astonished at their courage: being safe isn’t the same as feeling safe.

Watch out.  If you come to stay, we may send you there.  Malcolm and I will be watching from below again

Emily strides from tree to tree

A Chimney Falls

Martine won that medal of hers – see my last-but-one posting – for producing 6 children. Where would we be without that family?  She, Francis, and 3 of her children were responsible for getting rid of our garden sheds for us a couple of months ago.  Last week, Francis and yet another of her sons were responsible for demolishing the monstrously heavy & ugly asbestos chimney that emerged onto our roof terrace as the outlet for the now demolished central heating.  Malcolm sawed it up the next day: even the six pieces he made of it are horribly heavy. Now they’re safely wrapped up, and the whole thing’s at the tip.  Another job done.  Thanks, team!

The offending chimney. Big. Ugly. Heavy
Francis examines the problem…..
….and dresses for business
Half way down….
Three-quarters down
…down

Foraging: a Mushroom Hunt

Yesterday, members of Atout Fruit went mushrooming.  ‘ You couldn’t have!’, I hear you cry, as several people I mentioned it to did, ‘Autumn’s mushrooming time.  On the whole’.  Well, yes, up to a point.  But our guide Francis, an organic farmer near Chalabre, keeps his family in mushrooms every single week of the year.  He knows where to look.

The hunters set forth

And so he took a group of about 10 of us to the woods.  Where?  I’m not going to tell you that silly.  Somewhere near Lavelanet.  That’s all you need to know.

He told us some of the lore and laws surrounding mushrooming.  That you can gather 5 kilos per person per day in the Aude, but only 3 kilos here in the Ariège .  I wish.  I’m ecstatic generally if I find as many as three mushrooms.  That about 85% of land is in private ownership.  That you may have the right to gather in the Fôret Communale of certain communes if you are resident there. That you must have written permission if a landowner gives you permission to go mushrooming on his land in case the police stop you as you carry your haul home.  Theoretically, you could be stopped as you return from the shops with an extra-big bag of them.

An inedible amonite

Mushrooms in the woods, pushing steadily through the thick thatch of decaying leaves, are surprisingly hard to spot, clinging to the base of tree trunks, bulging through the crust of impacted dry foliage.  We quickly divided into a hit squad of those who seemed to have an eye for it, and others, who like me, were destined to remain in the B team.  Francis showed us edible girolles, gariguettes and russules, and warned against the attractive-but-not-to-be-eaten family of amanites.

Look at the whole thing to identify it correctly

We’d trot over to him with our finds, to be disappointed when he warned us against putting them in the pot, triumphant on those occasions when he said they were ‘delicieux’.  We could guess after a while which ones were delicieux.  The slugs and worms had got there first and eaten little circles out of them.  No matter.  Plenty left for us.

After a couple of hours, we wandered back to his mum’s kitchen (she’d lent her house for the afternoon), got out the textbooks, and discussed our finds.  Not many mushrooms are dangerous, but unfortunately, they do tend to look rather like their edible cousins, and it only takes one……

Some of our haul

The family takes its mushrooms seriously.  The ones they can’t immediately eat are preserved in oil, or dried, and the surplus sold to discerning customers.  We spend a happy time exchanging our favourite ways of preserving, drying and bottling all the fruits of the seasons – this sharing is always my favourite part of an Atout Fruit gathering.

Together, we disposed of a big pot of sautéed mushrooms, the juices sopped up with bread, and helped down with a glass of wine, before reluctantly setting off home, our baskets more or less filled with our afternoon finds.  When I got home, Malcolm and Henri were drinking coffee.  ‘Whaddya mean, you’re not telling where you got those mushrooms?’ Henri grumbled. ‘You’re a right proper Ariègoise you are’.

A mushroomy supper cooking on the stove

The High Life at Lanoux

We’ve just had a wonderful weekend at Lanoux.   Well on the way to Andorra and Spain, the reservoir at Lanoux is high up (7261 feet) in the Pyrénées Orientales. It’s a natural lake, enlarged by the creation of an immense barrage that enables it to produce quantities of electricity for the area and for industry in the Ariège.  Building this barrage must have been quite an undertaking – it took 20 years from 1940-1960: up there, it’s a good 2 ½ hour walk down to the nearest road (though they did have a cable car, since removed), and the winter months are given over to deep snow.  And of course there was a world war on in the 1940’s.  We stayed in the refuge used by the construction workers at the time, a simple structure with a dormitory of three storey bunk beds, a large kitchen-living room, two hole-in-the-floor toilets, and … one washbasin just inside the entrance.  Everything we ate, everything we needed, we had to carry up – and bring any rubbish down again. But our two days there were memorable.  Why?

Was it the landscape? Our walk from the valley floor began with wooded green meadows, and as we climbed, we saw lakes, crossed 20 or more streams, and followed the course of a dozen others. Higher, the landscape became starker with slatey outcrops that reminded us of the Lake District or North Wales, though on a much bigger scale. Even though it’s June and the weather was warm, we soon reached what was left of the snowfields. We were surrounded by peaks higher still than we were, such as le Carlit, over 9 ½ thousand feet high

The flowers? Early June is a wonderful time to do this walk.  The azaleas aren’t quite out, but we saw Alpine & spring gentians, both a brilliant royal blue, orchids, sempervivum (joubarbe), vividly yellow gorse, creamy rock roses and saxifrage, tiny pink and white moss campion, delicate mauve violets, bilberry flowers, even a few late daffodils

The animals? Lower down, we spotted a herd of isards (Pyrenéan chamois) bounding across a meadow where semi-wild black Merens horses grazed.  Near our refuge, there were chestnut horses too, with their leggy young foals.  We spotted distant mouflons, and on the way down from Lanoux, marmots chasing and playing on the rocky grass.

The water? The lake itself is sternly beautiful, set among the slatey mountains of le Carlit, and the area is criss-crossed by deltas of streams and rivers, with splashing cascades as the water tumbles down the mountain sides.  There are ponds and lakes at every turn, and in every distant view.

Friendship? Weekends like this are the chance to nourish existing relationships, as this weekend with our Laroquais friends showed.  Up at the refuge though, we were joined by a group from Toulouse, who’d come, like us, to enjoy the empty countryside and to spend time together.  They all knew each other very well, and could have resented our intrusion: but instead, we shared some very special moments.  We pooled our food and drink, ate their homemade pâtés, and drank their homemade apéros.  We talked, laughed, played silly card games, and the next morning, went walking together.  So now we have some new friends too.

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Martine’s Medal

The Médaille de la Famille Française was created on 26th May 1920, following the catastrophic losses of the First World War, and can be awarded to mothers:

Bronze medal: for raising 4 or 5 children

Silver: for raising 6 or 7 children

Gold: for raising 8 or more children.

Since 1983, fathers or non-family members who have been responsible for bringing up numbers of French children can also qualify for a medal.  There’s even a Catholic priest who qualified for the award, having raised his housekeeper’s children when she died.

Why the history lesson?  Well, recently, we were invited to a ceremony to award such a medal.  Sadly, I was in England on the day, but Our Man in Laroque, Malcolm, has submitted his report of the event

Two French friends, Martine and Francis, have a large and happy family – six children: three boys, three girls.  Recently, Francis invited us to attend a ceremony to award his wife a silver Médaille de la Famille Française – not a word to Martine about this, you understand – a family event, but to be a surprise for her.

 

Turned up on the dot – a quaint English practice – at the appointed place.  There were only six people there, and no sign of husband or wife.  Nibbles were ready and waiting on tables, along with a few bottles of champagne, and there, on a separate table, stood a framed award, a small velvet-lined box containing a medal, and flowers, beautifully wrapped in presentation packaging.

 

And so we waited.  And waited.  Gradually, more of the children arrived. But not all.  Then Francis, wearing a blue suit (before, we’ve only ever seen him casually dressed).  And then, eventually, Martine appeared, chauffeured by one of her boys, and looking somewhat bemused.  She too was wearing some finery.

 

And still we waited.  For the sixth, and youngest, child of the family to arrive.  But she didn’t.  Turned out she had a football match on, and had forgotten….

 

So the ceremony began without her.  A smartly dressed woman of a certain age, the representative of the préfet, read a prepared speech from a sheet, Francis read another, and then presented Martine with a large bouquet of beautiful and rather exotic-looking flowers.  Then came the handing over of the framed certificate, more  flowers, and, most importantly, the silver medal, which was taken from its box and pinned on her.

 

The ceremony over, it was time for wine, nibbles, and photos.

 

And later?  The family went back home to eat a special meal. This time, all the children were present, as the football match had ended.  More posing, more photos, then an evening round the table – mother and father, their six children, a daughter-in-law, heavily pregnant, her parents, and one guest – me.  I felt tremendously privileged to have been invited to this ceremony and then to their celebratory meal.  Unique – I’d never been to such an event before, and doubt I’ll ever go to another like it – and moving – if integration is what we’re trying to achieve, it doesn’t come better than this.

A Consumer’s Guide to Grass Cutting

Up at that garden of ours, there’s rough grass to cut.  We use a strimmer, and it takes a long, sweaty time.  We can’t do away with it, but perhaps we need help?

We thought of  sheep:

We considered a donkey:

We discussed a goat:

We’re serious about hens:But when  came back to Harrogate, I saw that our neighbour’s 5 year old’s just acquired a guinea pig.  Every day the run is moved, and every day, there’s a new rectangle of freshly nibbled grass.  Hmmm.Nah, not really.  Hens it’ll be.  But that little guinea pig of Paul’s is very efficient and purposeful