We finally made it to our next destination in Aude after several days delay because of the snow. Having laughed at everyone at home in the UK under several inches of snow we had to stop smirking quite so hard when we heard that our host at Arques in Aude was snowed in. When we first heard this we stopped packing up and took a brief look at the weather forecast before realising that we too were “snowed in”. “Snowed in” is actually a bit of a relative term we realised as at my aunt and uncle’s home in the Lot et Garonne this actually meant hard icy snow on the road – bad idea to drive, but possible. In Aude this meant 1 metre snow drifts, making life slightly more problematic! Impatience eventually got the better of us and we set out towards Arques, managing to get to the edge of the village where our host Ivan came to pick us up in his not quite 4 wheel drive car, complete with all important snow chains.
We left the car where it was, hoping that any potential car thieves (not massively present in the middle of nowhere in rural France) would also be deterred by the snow. Fortunately it was still there the next day when we were given a lift down to get it, by which time we had settled in a bit and made friends with our new host family – a family of 5 from the UK, headed up by Klair and Ivan and livened up by three boys, the youngest of which is Tegan’s age. Tegan has taken to calling these three her boyfriends and seems to have slotted in fine showing up all her best tomboy qualities! The plethora of toy tractors, cars and things to pull, push and ride has made Tegan enormously happy, and consequently walking around the place has become a pretty hazardous activity.
Unpacking in our nice sized (but pretty cold) room has revealed that we have no less than 18 pairs of gloves – how can this be? We have between us 2 pairs of work gloves, 2 pairs of gardening gloves, 2 pairs of cycling gloves, 2 pairs of ski gloves (clearly we anticipated snow!), one pair of fingerless mittens, one pair of woolly gloves, two pairs of waterproof (or not as the case may be) gloves, one pair of rubber gloves (not too sure why), and five pairs of gloves that Tegan has and all but refuses to wear! I wonder if this is some kind of record………………….?
Anyway after 10 days of being here we can safely report that all is going very smoothly indeed, and that our hosts are not only really lovely and friendly but are so far people we have clicked with the best. We have spent most of the time preparing ground for new fruit trees which has involved marking circles in the ground (not of the crop circle variety), strimming the grass and then digging up the earth. This was made a lot easier by Ivan starting the job with his digger (oooh how pleased was Tegan when she saw that!?) and then we broke the ground up further with a mattock and greillenette. The greillenette is basically a two handled fork that breaks up the ground in quite a satisfying way as you can jump on it and push it and pull it, and it doesn’t break like a normal fork (at least not yet………..). This work took several days and is pretty back breaking but was worth it as the fruit trees have finally gone in today and we feel quite pleased with ourselves. I also built a fence around one of the trees (a mulberry, planted outside the main field) to stop the wild boar chomping it – haven’t seen one yet but apparently they are quite determined creatures when it comes to foraging for food. We have also collected a load of straw for said trees– we filled the back of Ivan and Klair’s van with it today. This turned out to be a lovely job as it was beautifully sunny and warm today (which also meant our first outside lunch for ages!). This is in contrast however to most of the rest of the time which has been a bit hit and miss weather wise.
Collecting straw
Trying to use the rake
The Mulberry tree in it’s new enlosure
The field of trees
We have managed to do quite a bit of work though – insulating the garage ceiling with some shiny bubble wrap (so that it looks a bit like a spaceman has been plastered to the ceiling), stacking wood and a bit of cooking on the rainy days. Collecting leaves (for leaf mould compost) and wood from the forest and picking and chopping parsley on the slightly nicer days. We have felt pretty productive here actually, which has a lot to do with the fact that Tegan is easily entertained by her new playmate Fabien. They seem to be very content to run around after each other and be watched by each others’ parents and generally share in the same mischief making. It is really nice to see Tegan with another 2 year old as she hasn’t until now had a chance so far to be around kids of her own age. Of course this means that there are two toddlers in the same space which can be a bit manic but there seems to be a sort of solidarity in the madness!
We plan to stay here for another week and then head to Spain. There are quiet a few things lined up for next week, including building some garden terraces and Andy and Ivan’s project to build a reservoir. Methinks that there is not really enough time to do all these things, which is a real shame as we have had such a good time here. We have also learnt a few things about gardening that we may try to take home with us (yes to our teeny garden!) since Ivan and Klair are market gardeners and seem to know all that clever stuff about when to plant things and what pots to use and how to prune things. Unfortunately the Jewell Ware combo thus far has only undertaken the type of gardening that involves dashing into B&Q in June and buying things that should’ve been planted in March but shoving them in a pot anyway to see what happens! This approach has not been entirely without success but watch out Bristol, we may actually become productive gardeners one day!
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