The tea time sessions presents : Multi-Love

Direct from the teatime sessions sumptuous recording suite - the kitchen - Unknown Mortal Orchestra's masterful song, Multi love.

Nearing the end of a project

A building project that occupied much of our time over the last year. Fearful moments, wonderful moments, great satisfaction, and a collective feeling that we'd probably never want to do anything like this again...

Everything used has been hunted down at recycling places, charity shops, boot sales, online junk exchange, skips and the various local dumps, only the unavoidable basics bought - insulation, plaster board, the electrician and plumber skills/materials, etc.  

It's down to the small stuff now - unearthing the tile cutter to do the one skirting tile we were short of, a couple of curtains to finish, a bit of missed grout, a touch of repainting here and there; and a few bigger items, like pointing the exterior back wall and finishing off the courtyard BBQ area. 

Thanks to our our wonderful Workaway, Christopher, said BBQ area has emerged from a huge mound of earth and rocks at the back of the building which was once the bread oven - sadly neglected and allowed to collapse over time.

A few recent photos, and top one from what now seems a very, very long time ago...

before...

after

The original door knocker from the main house.

remains of the old bread oven - with tree growing out of it...

cleared away, and wall partially pointed 

new rustic BBQ made of reclaimed bits from our local charity emporium. 

Total cost: six euros

One man's rubbish . . .

Is another woman's gold. Or in this case, two, not at all valuable but highly serviceable objects that I narrowly stopped said man hurling into the 'tout venant' - general rubbish - at the tip/dechetterie/dump a couple of days ago.

I'd swerved the car to a Starsky and Hutch style halt as I'd seen an arc of unwanted glassware glinting in the afternoon sunshine headed for the afore-mentioned container, and ran up to the man to ask -as politely as possible - if he could stop throwing useable glasses away. He'd smiled benignly and said, too late. 

You'll want to keep the basket, I'd said, assuming he would want to keep a handmade, good nick whicker basket. 

He shrugged: Non - c'est pour le poubelle aussi . . . you want it? 

Yes.

And this old wooden box?

Indeed. The old wooden box was actually a purpose made and delightful carrying container for holding new plants to be planted out. I briefly peered at his car that was full of less interesting stuff.

Ah. Shame he said, noting my surreptitious glance, I have many more things like this which will come here.

Due elsewhere I stopped myself asking for his address and a RDV in order to trawl his house, and unloaded my car of real dump garbage - unusable bits of plasterboard, broken glass, damp cardboard etc and set off again wondering why he hadn't bothered to take the useable items to our not-far-away excellent emporium of second hand everything; or at least leave the things to one side for someone else to re-home. 

Judging by the employer at the place however anything that was left would be swiftly binned anyway, unlike at the dump I had tried to go to before getting my dates mixed up, where they positively encourage folk to re-house stuff and recycle absolutely everything from china, sinks, all different types of plastic, paint, furniture and of course, perfectly serviceable whicker baskets...

A perfect day

Not on a sun-drenched beach, exploring the hot springs of Iceland, or snow-boarding in the Alps. just a half hour journey up the road to meet my son at a half way point we use when meeting for a hike or exploration of the area.

Château le Vallière is relatively unremarkable apart from the scenic lake that sits below the town within a bowl of green hills. As this was an 'insolite' (quirky) wanderings day rather than a serious striding out walk we started by clambering up to the disused railway track - or rather, tracks, as there would have been two lines usefully connecting many of the small - now rather dead- villages and towns of the area - and walking quite a distance before skirting back into the town from a different direction.

As all the cafés I had pinpointed as possible quick lunch stops were inexplicably closed - restaurant strikes? (unlikely!) - a supermarket picnic sufficed which we enjoyed sitting on the disused and impressive old metal train bridge spanning the valley. 

Map banned, we strolled on, seeing where we would end up - with a rough knowledge of where the car had been left. The February sun shone brightly on impossibly green pastures, the white bulk of the local gravel factory and our three selves as we rather reluctantly made our ways back to the walk's starting point and the separate journeys home.

Thanks, the lad - great day.

    

Chega de Saudade - No More Blues

Live from the teatime sessions kitchen, our take on this bossa classic.

Enough of all that homesickness... the English version of the 1957 song, first recorded by the great Brazilian actress and singer, Elizete Cardosa. Music by Antönio Carlos Jobim.

Fundamental stuff

Last summer on a ragingly hot day I did that thing we probably all do, mention to whoever is with us - or to ourselves, (yes, I do this) how impossible it is to imagine a the same place during a spell of extreme cold. Mark had stared across the parched grass and nodded: "Yup. Fires, hot water bottles . . . wood cutting..." 

I'd gathered a clutch of dead silver birch branches and gone to look at the wood shed and its depleted stocks of dry kindling. Delving more into the images of soup, socks and breaking ice from the bird baths I'd done more gathering and duly stacked the waiting boxes. 

This January morning while sawing up logs for the smaller wood burner, I stopped and did the thought in reverse - watering relentlessly, getting in any nearby river to cool off, sleeping outside, and . . . gathering twigs in preparation for the cold; not high on the summer agenda but if relying on wood for heat, imperative. Nothing worse than fumbling about with a torch for a bit of damp kindling on a freezing morning.

When we found this house and its attached wood on a baking August day, the thought of fires and managing wood was a just a vague idea. I think Mark did say, do you think we can manage all this? I may have said, Yes, course we can, or probably . . . hopefully! Can't recall now, but as we'd already spend ten years or so in another house fuelled by wood it didn't seem impossible. We used to have deliveries of oak and chestnut as everyone did in that region. Here, it's our own ash trees, mixed with a bit of oak, silver birch or anything that's fallen over in the garden. Free fuel as long as we can cut and stock it. This year our helpful occasional gardener seems to have vanished; I'm on the trail of another, or possibly a handy workaway person to help. We just need to keep the system rolling - cut, stock to dry for a year and a half, burn, repeat. We have plenty for next year and some stocked for the year after, but the large branches that could theoretically fall across the train tracks need to be pollarded (étêtage in French), at the least.

Pollarding is so incredibly sensible, a practice started in the middle ages - a way of creating a sustainable firewood source, making shade, encouraging healthier tree growth, even cattle feed. Our ash trees were all pollarded about seven years ago and need doing again, but, of course its expensive so we are doing it bit by bit, and letting the wood do mostly its own thing - much appreciated by the woodpeckers and owls that inhabit the older trees.

This year, I've become a wood burner nerd - arranging wood in branch sizes in the barn, stocking kindling next to both fires so it drys completely, doing the fire cleaning first thing in the morning - ashes to the chicken sand pit (they like to bathe in it to discourage mites, etc), getting the days wood in, and so on. A minor recycling triumph was cutting the dead reeds from the reed bed and using them as first stage kindling - best ever!

It's all time consuming and dust producing and sometimes muscle aching, but somehow, as the post title suggests, fundamental, and oddly life-affirming in these times of more, faster, easier. Not exciting perhaps, but satisfying. On one of the coldest days recently when more dystopian thoughts ranged around my mind, I did a try out of what could be achieved on the bigger wood stove, the result: drying washing, stew cooked from scratch, dog food and chicken food cooked up, and a pan of water heated inside the stove for tea.

Tea time sessions present...

The Muddy Waters classic,  Got My Mojo Working, which in fact, was first recorded recorded by Ann Cole in 1956.