Animals at Christmas

It's Christmas in the garden!

The hens are thriving in their new hen run (fence designed by Ben out of old pallet wood, and constructed en famille by all four of us (but mostly by Ben...) Raja is certain that there is a hole in the fence somewhere. Her new life-project is to seek out the gap - she doesn't want to eat the hens, by the way, she wants the kitchen scraps we feed them!

Son 1 and Ben were out in the garden with the Christmas lights last weekend, and decided to include the hens in the festivities. I'll try to get a photo at night time, too.

Just as Raja tries to eat the hen's food, a goat ate my wreath! This was before it got to me - a friend who's a trained florist made it for me and left it near her back door to keep fresh. Whereupon one of her goats ate it... so I have made a reasonable job with ivy from the garden, but I do miss Amy's creation!

I Believe in Fires at Midnight...

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Listen to this Jethro Tull song here to find out what's been going through my mind this morning...

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'I believe in fires at midnight, when the dogs have all been fed.

A golden toddy on the mantle; a broken gun beneath the bed.

Silken mist outside the window -Frogs and newts slip in the dark.

Too much hurry ruins a body: I'll sit easy; fan the spark.'

j

j

'Kindled by the dying embers of another working day.

Go upstairs: take off your make-up -Fold your clothes neatly away.

Me, I'll sit and write this love song

As I all too seldom do -Build a little fire this midnight.

It's good to be back home with you.'

j

I'm sure it's because Ben's away, and we had a long phone chat as I sat by the log fire last night. He was in a snowy Copenhagen, once again in a hotel chosen by the secretary at work, once again in the red light district!
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He ended by saying: 'See you late tomorrow night!' Poor man, I had to remind him it was only Wednesday night, and he gets back on Friday at midnight...

Sounds of Spring in Southern France

I try to give a good impression of what it's like to be here near Toulouse through my photos, but recently I've been so much enjoying the sounds of spring that I wanted to try to share some those with you too.

The sounds of a morning bike ride:

The wind in my ears
a frog in the ditch. The sounds of an evening dog walk:

Screaming boys

and cicadas on the way home.The sounds of the Veti Relais car park (my favourite charity shop):

Planes taking off from Toulouse airport

and the song of the skylark. © Arthur Grosset

Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

24 hours of flowers

We've had 24 hours of flowers here, outdoors...
and in...Yesterday afternoon Son 2 fulfilled his desire to get to grips with my sewing machine - I decided that he was safe to continue my bunting if supervised...He was great - on the technical stuff, as well as the sewing...We got the flags finished this morning!Meanwhile, Son 1 was down at our local lake, fishing with his friend Maxime. They never actually catch anything edible, but it's a great hobby! We took a break from the sewing to go and visit, and to collect more river pebbles...

The leaves are coming out on the trees.The trees reflect beautifully in the clay-pit lake, and the wildflowers are all around.

I'm not a flower expert, but I'll name the ones I think I recognise! I can only name them in English, not in French, though. Can you spot the periwinkles, creeping over the opposite bank of the stream?The streams and rivers are deep at the moment, with strong currents, so we keep Raja out of them.
Although she still finds plenty of water on the meadows!Son 1 was with me and the dog by this point, and we spotted stitchwort.And the little wild geranium, cranesbill (I know most of my flowers from the Flower Fairies - I can still quote parts of the cranesbill poem).Son 1 went off with Raja, and so missed the star of our walk, spotted by Son 2:Back at home, and wishing this blog had smellivision (for old fans of Blue Peter and Simon Groom), our ornamental olive is flowering and perfuming the whole area around the front door. It's the most restful scent...In the evening, Son 1 got interested in the sewing project, although he doesn't sew himself.He also resisted the general hilarity this morning, and declined to be photographed as a 'flower child'. He kindly volunteered Chanel as a 'flower cat', as you see.

We'll hopefully finish the bunting today, and we'll take some photos of its 'launch' in our home!

One more recipient is needed for my Pay it Forward - click here if you want some goodies from me and the chance to take part yourself! My goodies are light and easily postable, so any blogger, anywhere, any country, is welcome to join in. If you've just popped in for a visit for the first time, still go ahead - I love to meet new people!

An ongoing project... and pets...

Any walk with our family tends to involve the collection of smooth river pebbles - they're all over our area, thanks to glacial deposits from the last Ice Age, I presume. You can see how they're used in local architecture in the photo at the bottom of this earlier post. This bucket came home with us yesterday, having left the house with a few sticklebacks in it which needed returning to the stream!Yes, Raja, your ball is in there too!There is a reason for all this collecting. Our garden was very overgrown when we moved in three years ago, but a bit of tapping and excavation discovered two areas of paving under the grass. This one is near the patio, but has such huge gaps between the stones that it's not actually much use as a terrace. It becomes horrendously overgrown with gaps that size!Last year I saw a very pleasant Spanish terrace in a magazine, which had smooth river pebbles between its stones, something like this:

Obviously a bit of weeding has to go on, but if you go over it once a week in the growing season it comes to look like this, which I think is quite pleasing:Here's the technique:And here's my helper!The little terrace is in front of the kitchen window, which used to have a large bush obscuring everything. Last year Ben and I hauled the bush out (it has been successfully transplanted!) and planted a shady garden, which is also fairly successful.We've put lots of stumps around the little garden, to encourage garden-friendly insects and to provide some height for the new plants.
This rather bizarre central feature is to protect my plants from the cat, Chanel! He has taken badly to the introduction of the dog into the house, and generally comes to the kitchen window to demand entry in a dog-free room. So many of my plants were squashed on his various routes to the window sill that I made him this runway. It seems to be working...When I was in Edinburgh Ben and his mum bought me this geranium for the shady garden. The flowers are going to be purple, I think - I can't wait! And finally, this is the delightful result of our mild snowfall this January.And that was enough snow to close Son 1's College!

I'm still looking for one more person for 'Pay it Forward' (see yesterday's first post). Don't be shy - even if you've never left a comment here before, I'd love to get to know you and send you some goodies! Check below and see if you'd like to get involved!

Blue skies and blossoms

With my bike out of action, I have taken to drastic measures such as going for a morning walk with Son 1's beloved Cocker Spaniel, Raja... This is no hardship, as the morning skies are blue and the blossom is everywhere: on the Coulée Verte (our local wildlife trail)....

in the garden... and on the streets.

Here are a selection of beautiful scenes from the last few days.

Down in a dark and damp part of the Coulée Verte, lichen surrounds the blossoms.

On the streets, in full sunshine, everything is completely out. Even against the fencing of the rugby 'stade' the blossom struggles through the Leylandii hedge.

White, pink and yellow are the dominant colours.

Although blue can creep in, as at the foot of our garden magnolia.

Little blue stars amongst the stellar explosion of pink and white...

Someone else has a much bigger magnolia than us!

Having put crystalised mimosa seeds on my cupcakes this weekend, I was interested to study the real plant. It really is made up of little yellow balls!

There are relatively few leaves out. In southern France, many oaks keep their old leaves until the new green ones come. It's a sight we've got used to, but it surprised us at first.

Just more beautiful blossom - it's everywhere!

Like a Japanese painting...

Enjoy your day - sunny or not!