PERMACULTURE UNITES US

At the Villereal market last Saturday there was a young lady we hadn't seen before, selling her fruit and vegetables. She looked ever so gorgeously hippy so we wandered over to see what she had on her stall. Her sign proudly announced her tomatoes, zucchinis, capsicums, melons etc were raised "pleine terre" (the name for unofficial organics here in France) and incorporating permaculture. I bought a couple of her round zucchinis to stuff and then I noticed she had a leaflet which I picked up too as it is always good to get to know the growers we buy from. As luck would have it, Sandrine and Rene lived only a few kilometres away from us and were offering farm visits and as we have the KGI get-together happening in a couple of weeks we thought this might just be the kind of place it would be great to experience.

So, today we visited Sandrine and Rene and their 2 dogs, 2 angora goats, 150 chickens (meat and eggs), who knows how many rabbits, a couple of dams full of fish, an array of summer vegetables and a poly tunnel to keep things going into winter. Rene is Austrian and next to the front door he has a keg of beer on tap from which he pulled us each a glass and himself a big stein before sitting us down at a shady table for a couple of ripe figs and a chat!

This is their first year and their enthusiasm bubbles out of every pore of their tanned skins. They have a dream to live a natural existence amongst well-cared for, loved (and eventually eaten) animals and to produce food from soil enriched with humus and all good things, in the style I am so at home with..... semi-organised chaos.

They knew of Bill Mollison, the Australian who first created a style of thinking and living and growing called permaculture and asked me if I had a copy of "Introduction to Permaculture" ..... which I have..... in French, which I have not and which is hard to find evidently. Please let me know if you have one I could lend them!

Sadly I didn't take my camera today but those of you coming to the Kitchen Gardeners weekend in September will get to meet Sandrine and Rene, and they will show us the beginnings of their dream and provide us with  BBQ of some of their chickens and rabbits and salads from their garden. What do they want in return? Ideas, friendships, contacts, fun and a chance to relax amongst their fields and forests, overlooking their lake, with like-minded people. Of course I offered to bring a cake..... an offer no-one has ever refused, yet. I am so pleased to have found this lovely couple and hope it is the start of a long and happy relationship for us all.

Bon appetit!

SETTING THE SCENE

We all know the scene already..... an early morning cup of coffee, summer mornings gardening before the heat sets in, breakfast outside in the garden, a few jobs to get done before lunch, neighbours calling in, letters or emails to write, cooking, cleaning, a bit of watering in the evening and so the days go by in a pleasant rhythm. This could describe almost any domestic life anywhere in the world, from China, Japan and Singapore to Rome, London, Adelaide and New York. It could be the life of many African villagers,  rural South Americans or city dwellers in Adelaide.

But when you move from one side of the world to the other, there are so many differences.... some hilarious, some obscure and some very strange. I have moved from a place where seeds sown need daily or twice daily watering to ensure germination, to south west France where a bag of opened compost gets wetter because of the humidity and seeds sown in the shade need no watering even when temperatures reach 37C ! I even sowed some radishes in the full sun and forgot to check them for 2 days, when I found them happily germinating, the topsoil still damp, even though I was wilting from the heat.

Humidity also means that, unlike in Adelaide where food stored  in or out of the fridge always needs covering to stop it drying out, here vegetables go soggy and mouldy after only a few days of such treatment and are best left uncovered. Clothes can hang all day on the clothes line in 30+ degrees and still not be dry! Pots of herbs and flowers abound in this part of the world because of the humidity and our array of potted herbs is flourishing with little care. The grass is green even towards the end of summer but whereas I see it as lush and beautiful, Ian sees it as coarse and sparse..... something we only just discovered yesterday as we sat under a magnificent horse chestnut tree, having lunch, chatting. I have bare feet all the time just to feel the green grass on my feet whereas Ian asked me how I can stand walking on the poor, sparse grass! Compared to Wales, this lawn is a disgrace, evidently, but compared to late summer in Adelaide it is heaven!

Shopping is very funny here and deserves a whole post of its own. As far as I know this is the only part of the world where absolutely everything except restaurants, closes for 2 to 4 hours over lunchtime. It is peak tourist season and millions of people crowd the villages from sunup to sundown daily but beware! If you want a sandwich or a drink you must buy it before 12 noon or have to eat in a restaurant or wait several hours for the supermarkets or bakeries to re-open. It is no good thinking you will pop into the garden centre or hardware shop on the way home unless you are aware of the time, and don't expect the check-out operators to be in a rush to get you through before closing time either..... here there is no rush, except on the roads, but doors close at 12, promptly, and may open later..... or not. Opening hours are brief and impossible to understand for me. How can a shop advertise "open 7 days" and then not be open for 3 hours a day and not on Sunday afternoons at all, or on Thursdays or any other time they decide to take a holiday? C'est la vie, it seems.

This is the home of slow food and nothing is as important as food..... quality is number 1 and absolutely everyone discusses it at length.... men, women and children. Local is paramount and the only good food is that produced nearby.... the French are fiercely proud of the quality of their local food and will tell you, while throwing their hands in the air, that such and such is produced elsewhere but is inferior. Even the enormous supermarkets mostly stock French foods and very local where possible. Small producers rather than huge agribusiness are the main suppliers here of fresh fruit, vegetables and even meat. Everything is labelled with not just country of origin but also district.

There are two things completely lacking though, here in beautiful south west France. One is online facilities for bill paying, looking up local businesses and products etc and the other is flywire screens! Is this because there are no flies? NO! How can such a civilised place be so uncivilised about flies? Either you keep the windows shut from early morning until night or you put up with flies buzzing around the kitchen and beetles and moths bumping into you while you sleep! Luckily, having stone walls over 18 inches thick and lovely, old tiled floors means the house is always cool so it is not too much of an issue..... yet!

A few days ago we had a BBQ for about 20 people, for Ian's birthday. I saw octopus in the supermarket seafood display and thought it would be something Australian I could cook, and very cheap..... so I asked for a kilogram of it. The girl serving picked up the whole octopus and said it was 1.6kg..... well, there didn't seem to be any choice so I took it.

The finer details of shopping in another language are hard to work out! I marinated it in olive oil and lemon juice and we cooked it on the BBQ to the delight of the visitors who had mostly never had it before. I also made humous and a peach tart and have requests for the recipes which is very nice, especially knowing how great the cooks are who came to the BBQ!

The vegetable garden is coming on a treat and we are picking from it every day. See the photo at the top. I will take photos of the garden soon to post here, Christie, and I am not sure why I haven't done it yet. The days just seem to be full of .... well .... living .... and being here is enough just now.

SKIPPITY DOO

It is time to start my new life and new blog but the first post is a scary one! Do I start with why? Or where? Or just launch in? I have picked fruit and veg from my new garden and sown seeds already too....

OK..... in the next few days I WILL do it.....for sure ..... then there will be no stopping me!

Men Don't Dance Anymore

There is a great Beccy Cole song called Men Don't Dance Anymore.... I can't find a video clip of it unfortunately but I found this poster and liked the humour

Well bless my soul what's wrong with you all crowded round the bar
The girls are on the dance floor while you brag about your cars
You don't have to move like Elvis to get out on the floor
'Cause men Don't Dance Anymore

Well you shake my nerves and rattle my brain but you just don't docey doe
You're all standing still while the play every song I know
Don't you know what those RM Williams boots are really for
Men Don't Dance Anymore

Let me show you something that will drive the girls insane
Every woman in this place will want to know your name
Clap your hands, shake your hips, turn around like this
But Men Don't Dance Anymore

Bop Bop A Lula a wap bam boo I think you're almost there
The girls are going crazy but you ain't no Fred Astaire
And now the boys are in a conga line and heading for the door
Men Don't Dance Anymore

Couples on the dance floor that's how it's supposed to be
If you don't know what to do..boys just follow me
Step right, step left, pelvic thrust, shake your head
But Men Don't Dance Anymore
Oh No Men Don't Dance Anymore

Faces of a French Market

WALLS, WINDOWS and DETAILS

I have put together a series of photos depicting the interesting and quirky details of village buildings in south west France. Ranging from windows only as wide as a hand, to beautiful street signs and from wooden beams to door knockers. Coming from a modern country like Australia with no buildings dating back further than the 18oo's, I found it fascinating to wander the ancient streets of France and imagine the lives lived during the history of these buildings, most dating from the 1300's.

These are streets and buildings still functioning today as towns, homes and businesses. Despite the ancient exterior appearance, inside is modern, clean and functional. Rooves are often fitted with TV aerials and satellite dishes but advertising of any sort is rare and finding a particular shop or business can be extraordinarily difficult as addresses are vague and signage almost non-existent.

Market days bring crowds and the streets are bustling but the rest of the week is quiet and perfect for photography. Everything closes for lunch and siesta between 12 and 2 or 3 or even 4 and the villages become ghost-like, with only the restaurants showing any signs of life at all. Pots of plants are everywhere and indicate that people do actually live inside. During winter there was not a lot of colourful plantings but come spring, doorsteps will be edged in pots of geraniums and window boxes will overflow with colour.

Luckily for the visitor, French people have kept their beautiful, old buildings and not demolished them in the name of progress. To their way of thinking it does not matter what a building looks like on the outside, it is what is inside that counts. Renovations are only carried out to stop complete collapse of the walls. So they remain living history; a rare and wonderful thing in this era of cheap and nasty architecture.

Long live the French village.

A STORY OF THE WIND

It was time to start reading a new book. I have finished and enjoyed "The Private Patient" by P.D.James and also a wonderful book that I found in a second hand shop in Moonta, called "Spice Travels" by Ian Hemphill. He is a spice merchant from Sydney whose passion for spices has led him all over the world in pursuit of knowledge about the growing and processing of every spice on earth. So, I had 2 choices left, both recommendations from son Alex. First "The Ancestor's Tale", nearly 700 pages of Richard Dawkin's fascinating and beautifully written book on evolution. Second, "A Short History of Myth" by Karen Armstrong.

I have read about half of the introduction of each....and here I am thinking about humans being meaning-seeking creatures who conversely also have an imagination that allows us to think of things that have no existence. It is going to take me a long time to digest both of these books at this rate! As I gaze out of the shack window, while my mind considers facts and myths, the fact that is most noticeable is that the wind is coming up yet again while Roger imagines the feats he could achieve windsurfing, now that Langmuire has arrived.

The wind wriggles into life in some most interesting ways. Some of them are universal, some local. Some are obvious, some only observed by crazy people like me who seek both the real and the myth. Some beneficial, some not, but all a very real part of existence for every living thing on earth. So, who is Langmuire?

As the wind strengthens, it has various universally understood effects on the water beginning with ripples and waves and progressing to what we call white-caps (or white horses) from about 10 knots and then white foam forming in lines directly downwind at about 15 knots. I cannot explain the scientific reason for these white lines but I do know they are called Langmuire's Circulations, after a Mr. Langmuire. In my photo at left the white line cuts across the sea just below the writing.

 

In the photo at right you can see that the lines extend downwind of the reef.

This is the point at which Roger goes windsurfing as he knows there is enough wind and he can see the direction, without even going outside.....thanks Mr Langmuire! 

 

Before Mr Langmuire visits, though, other things happen..... the horizon turns from a soft blue, blending perfectly with the sky, to a sharp, dark line heralding the arrival of the afternoon sea breeze. If I am walking on this beach on a still day, before the sea breeze arrives, it is totally silent, as where I walk is very shallow and there is not even a ripple on the shore sometimes. There are no roads for many miles and rarely any people.... just the pure, pristine sea, and me. As the wind begins to rise, I can hear it far out at sea. It is quite beautiful and unreal to hear the wind in the distance but it be completely still where I am standing. As the first tiny flutters of breeze erratically approach the shore, the movement of the surface of the crystal clear water reflects on the sand below and makes delicate patterns, like light glistening through thousands of pieces of glass. It is quite breath-taking.

These first breaths bring pockets of air from who knows how far away. Some are hot, some cool and eventually they mix to form a  breeze uniformly cooled by its drifting across the sea. Even on a hot day, the air doesn't need to travel far across the sea to cool down or far across the land to heat up. Just sitting in the shallows instead of further up the beach makes a hell of a hot day into a pleasant one.

Just before Mr Langmuire arrives though, sand and seaweed start to blow along the beach, the windows start whistling, it becomes a challenge to sit outside and read without losing your hat and the local gulls start playing in the wind.They flap upwind for a while then turn like an acrobatic plane and shoot down the beach at break neck speed, without so much as one flap of their wings. They do this over and over on windy days, especially the larger, darker gulls, who also use the wind to hover as if in a windless cage, just outside our window, even in what seems like a gale, showing us just what nature can do, unaided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nature does very well when left alone..... here are a couple of recent examples.