February started with two celebrations. Our good friend Mark turned 60 and we enjoyed cooking one of his favourite dishes for his birthday meal. His wife Sandie made the cake and we played a music through the decades quiz which the birthday boy won hands down. A lovely evening.
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| Present opening time |
The 3rd of February also marked the 19th anniversary of our meeting. I don't know why but we always mark that more than our actual wedding anniversary in October. We are so lucky to have met and it looks like we will make it to that silver wedding after all despite our late start together. This quote was part of our wedding celebrations and pretty well sums it up for me.
“A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” George Eliot
It's great if your husband is your best friend too.
Family
My spring visit to the UK he coincided with another fête - one of my daughter-in-laws birthday. I took her and my daughter out to dinner to celebrate. It was delicious and what is a café by day is turned into a beautiful restaurant by night. High end food (and prices!) but well worth it. Excellent service and great wine choices from Ali made the meal one to remember.
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| A cheeky proseccio by the cosy fire to start the evening |
The next family birthday isn't actually until March - my granddaughter will be 6 on the 12th, but as we are expecting a little sister for her that day her party was brought forward to the end of February. She shared it with best friend Maggie and had a very special visitor to help with the celebrations.
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| Oh Oh - reindeer pooh smells horrible |
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| Charlie dressed as Kristoff |
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| The birthday girls with the real Elsa!! |
Fumier
We have had a potager (veg garden) since we moved here it but it was far away from the house so as to be far away from all the building works. All the trees that were cut down were put behind the barn out of the way. Now we are ready to set up our raised beds there so we have been beavering away moving the wood. We are nearly there but need the man with a digger to come to level the area. Of course it is too wet at the moment (this whole project has had delays due to wet ground) so we have to wait a little longer. Meanwhile we are making the raised beds and getting the compost ready. We also went to collect some old horse manure from our neighbouring riding school - hence the title of this post as manure is fumier in French. We also have a new greenhouse to put up (yes we left the other one for the new owners!) I have one raised bed ready to plant in but the rest will have to wait another month.
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| Site of new potager - still a bit to clear |
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| One prepared bed (yes I know it's on a slope - it won't stay there forever) |
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| The wood we have already moved |
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| We also finished setting up a flower border in the rear car park |
With 13 years of experience growing vegetables in this region we know not to be tempted to start too early but we are itching to get going - as soon as the site is levelled and cleared it will be all stations go and hopefully the weather will be on our side!
A bientôt.
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