Busy week

Been busy since my last posting,I have met up with another English girl, she is much younger than me, who is in training to walk up Snowdon later this month. So far we have managed one walk together, hopefully we will get more in. I am walking on my own in the evenings even if it is only to the end of the road and back 1.6km.

This morning Rob and I went out for a walk starting from the village of St Simeon, not far from here. It is a circular walk taking in several menirs and dolmens, however it soon become very hot so we only walked as far as the first menir and then came back along a different road. It was very quiet hardly anyone out and about. On the road leading out of St Simeon we found lots of edible mushrooms, all of which had already gone over but it shows that the season has started early this year, could be to do with all the rain we have had.

On our way to St Simeon we did come across several giant puffballs in a field with cows, they were close to the road so Rob rolled under the barbed wire and picked one, we shall be having it for supper. It is enormous - I have photographed it with a lemon to give some idea of size. It weighs 1300g

The garden continues to keep us supplied with fresh vegetables and herbs. Almost without exception our meals are based around the days harvest. We have eaten out first ripe tomato,see photo, but there are many more on the plants and two more are almost ripe. The potatoes continue to impress particularly the variety Rocket - I will be growing these again. The beetroot are also impressive and are living up to the description on the seed packet - they are large 10 -15 cm in diameter but still beautiful and tender all the way through - no tough bits at all.

Rob has been busy treating the floor and beams in the attic of the garage against wood worm, it has been a long hard task particularly when he was painting it on above his head. He managed to loose a contact lense as there was so much dust and perspiration - luckily he has brought along a second pair, as we have not managed to find it.

Costa del Faverie

Now that the weather has improved we have put out our new parasol which we brought with us, there was a time when we thought it would be staying in its box, but as you can see it gives a very summery impression. In fact I am sitting under it now as I write my blog - very pleasant indeed. What is also impressive is that I still get a good connection to the internet out here despite the wall between me and the 'livebox' is about 90cm thick.

There was lots happening round about this last weekend. It was the bi-annual Mediaeval Faire in Domfront and on Sunday the annual fete in Soucé. We visited Domfront on Saturday luckily timeing our visit avoiding the really heavy rain. It was not a good day, our neighbours who have a shop in Domfront said it was very disapointing but Sunday was much better as it was a bright and sunny day.

We went to Soucé where we had our stall selling chutneys and English paperbacks. We packed up early afternoon when we had only three jars of chutney left. We felt we had had a successful day. Sales were good with some repeat customers, I seem to be making a name for myself. Now I am waiting for the apples to ripen and for a glut of courgettes and I will be back making chutneys for next year.