Macroglossum stellatarum 2012

Having taken the two Elizabeth's back to Tours airport today for a week in the sunny UK... Ha Ha the weather forecast  is pretty grim in North West England... I am going to indulge myself with the Blog and make no excuses for it.

Macroglossum stellatarum - The Humming Bird Hawk Moth. On Sunday we took Elizabeth 2 to our local Château Rivau. It was my first sighting of the moth this year and I love to photograph them. 

I hope you enjoyed them...

Don't think I will get my own way with the blog all week... Watch this space!

Chinon's Monthly Brocante

The monthly brocante at Chinon expands to suit the weather. Visit in the winter and you'll be round it in fifteen minutes. This month's event was more extensive..

Size doesn't, however, alter the range of goods on offer...

In fact, isn't this the same egg whisk we saw in Richelieu last year?

I thought this grouping was particularly eye-catching!

There was even the opportunity to try before you buy..

Here's Colin eyeing up his next new car...

And for the ladies - Gaynor, we seem to remember you have a soft spot for the old cutlery stands??

Speaking of which.... Jean, we nearly bought these for you. We thought they bore a striking resemblance to someone close to your heart. However, the price came a bit too close to our hearts for comfort!

And to round it all off, there was an exhibition of arts and crafts with a jazz band playing us out..

As you'll probably have guessed, it took us rather longer than fifteen minutes to get round this time!

Wildlife problems - The battle continues...

Regular readers will know of our continuing battle with the taupes (moles)! Recently they have started making a right mess, digging under Elizabeth's prize roses and flower beds and under my pumpkins...

So it was out with the traps and with great success... These two have dug their last...

Our other problem is woody woodpecker who was spotted again this morning sampling the eating cherries... (Now there's something we didn't realise) With our hazelnut tree fully loaded with nuts, many of which are reaching a size where last year woody woodpecker was helping himself, it was time to create the scarecrow...

What we needed was something tall and scary...

We think this will do the trick...

Cherry picking by day - Storm by night

Yesterday after a glorious day out and about with Elizabeth and Elizabeth, most confusing for me, we came home and with time to spare before our meal we picked three and a half pounds of sour cherries.  We had noticed the starlings had taken a fancy to them and were flying off with beak fulls...

Yet another use for one section of the scaffold... 


The sour cherries were lovely stewed with some vanilla ice cream. Personally I prefer them to the normal ones... The eating cherry crop this year has been pretty poor and many of the cherries have split before they have ripened. 


Last night after being such a beautiful day, according to Elizabeth with photographs to prove it, we had the most horrendous storm which went on for several hours...

I slept through it, as did our guest, Elizabeth... 


By the state of the garden this morning it was obvious we had had some rain. The tomato plants and the broad beans had taken on a horizontal look and were covered with soil...


Guess what I have been doing today!

Where there's Smoke...

My friend, another Elizabeth, is staying with us for a few days. She arrived yesterday afternoon so in the evening I took her for a walk round the village, pointing out the usual places of interest. As we got to the church we were met with a spectacle which quite took us by surprise...

Standing with protective netting over his head and a smoker in his hand was a chap who introduced himself as a beekeeper from Richelieu. He had been called upon by the Mairie in Braye to come and remove a swarm of bees from one of the trees in the churchyard.

Monsieur was kind enough to show us the equipment he had brought with him and pose for a photograph..

Along with the smoker he had a ladder, a saw, a box in which to collect the bees and his protective gear.

The bees, he told us, had swarmed and taken up residence round the other side of the tree the previous day, but he had been unable to remove them. Last night they were at a slightly better angle. He had cut away some of the branches and revealed the extent of the swarm, which he estimated at 30,000 to 40,000 bees!

He told us that as a child he had attended the local school and made his first communion in Braye church back in 1942.

Now at the age of 80 he was back up a tree in the same church yard attempting to remove thirty to forty thousand bees, alone, in the fading light of a summer's evening..

I thought it was the perfect introduction to French rural life for my friend and I have to say, she was pretty impressed too!

We had to leave him to get on with the job in hand but we'll go back tonight to see if he managed it!

Sign of the Times?

We witnessed the removal of a road sign in Braye

and its subsequent relocation at the end of the next road....

The procedure involved two men and great attention to detail.. Rack of eye was employed and discussion ensued..

Was it level?? Was it in the right spot?

Job done, the men took themselves off..

The question which really perplexes us is why is there also the following sign on the same road....

And more to the point, why 47m?? Why, when there is plenty of room to put it at a standard 50m, say??

Weeds and the incredible price of 'Roundup'

Oh well a bit of free advertising coming up!!

We are generally not big users of weedkiller, in fact the only time we use it is to spray our pebbled drive to keep it weed free. For that we use 'Le desherbant annuel Herbatak Plus' a French product that is reasonably priced (we paid €5 for enough to do 570 m² ) and appears to work, usually not for the 12 months though...

This year our pelouse (grass) is being taken over by a dandelion type weed.

But we have found a solution, one spray of 'Roundup'  in the centre of each and they die incredibly well!!!

However the price of 'Roundup' here in France is incredible; a 3 litre container with a pump action spray nozzle is between €20 and €25...

When last over in the UK at the beginning of June we paid just over £7 for the same container at our local Tesco...  It's now on our import list!

So who's making the profit then??