February cold wet and sunny

Puycalvel from Bald Hill

It's been a cold and wet February, however from -2 and an inch of snow on one day we then had have 16 degrees warmth, blue skies and sun.

Snow for a few hours

Violets by the front door

Spring marches on (no pun intended) and there are buds on the Apricot, Cherry, Almond and the Lilac trees.  Daffodils will be blooming shortly, there are Celandine and Violets already under the trees.

I am completing the potager (vegetable garden) and orchard fences to house the chickens.  I plan to grow a hedge around the fences to attract nesting birds.  The potager will be dug using the tractor and a second-hand rotovator.  I will put in beds for fruit: strawberries, currants and raspberries. Salad vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes, chilli's aubergines, lettuce and courgette.  A big bed will be for sweet potatoes, salad potatoes, beans (French of course) kale, spinach, onions and shallots.  I will see how things grow and adjust next year.  The markets have all the pre-grown pots, I will however try to grow some plants from seed.  I have bought some from The Real Seed Company who specialise in ancient varieties.

Evie is very keen on the chickens and at six has already volunteered to feed the chickens and collect the eggs.  We plan on eight chickens of four varieties.  Any additional eggs will be made available to our Gite guests...nothing better for breakfast, than a fresh egg.

Over the past year I have changed my diet dramatically to be gluten free, so no beer when I return to the UK.  We eat seasonally mainly from the markets, local farmers produce, such as beef and lamb. Being in rural France we are prepared with a large chest freezer, to preserve seasonal fruit such as cherries and figs, as well as ordering whole lambs and meat boxes from local farmers.

The kids are now on holiday for the winter two weeks.  Janine's mum arrives this weekend for a three week visit and I am visiting Japan for a bit of skiing paid for by a great friend.

After four years the only things I miss about England are our friends.  Fortunately we sometimes visit the UK to see them or they visit us!  Life in France is interesting with Brexit, but was the best move for our family.  The kids are all thriving at school and enjoy the French way of life.

Castres

Janine has recently completed a TEFL course in Toulouse and passed with distinction, so will look to run immersion courses for French people to learn English.  We have an ideal location to run courses out of season.  With this in mind, I am starting to add heating to the Gites, the cottage has a wood burning stove, the Grange will have four radiators heated by a log burning stove with back boiler and a backup electric hot water tank.  I will eventually add a log burner to the Farmhouse!

Roll on the summer.