Bar Wars - Part One

Bar Wars - part 1

If you buy a holiday home, or move here permanently like we did you need to prepare yourself for the phenomena of constant summer visitors.....some a pleasure to welcome, others can be hard work! We have some space in the house, but we also put up a decorated teepee and a large Inuit tent in the orchard which is frequented at night by wild boars......but that's another story.....and we don't tell the visitors! It is exhausting talking to visitors all day. I insist on everyone here having siestas, and pack visitors off to their rooms, campervans or teepees to take an afternoon nap or at least be quiet, it is the only way I can recharge my batteries for the next round of cooking or going out. To wake us from our daytime slumbers today, another expat in our village, an 86 year old english lady, full of character, arrived with her little dog, to have my husband cut her dew claws that had once again grown right round digging in her pads, poor thing. Dave is the only person who can cut them, she even screams the place down for the vet! So cups of english tea and biscuits were served while the Dog Whisperer did his work! The sun was over the solar panels on the roof when he finished so the tea cups were replaced by glasses and it was time for a quick gin and tonic before dinner....... We decided to eat a steak up at the bar in the next village, so off we went at 7:30 pm, our neighbour, the cow farmer, was in there very drunk with two friends, one a giant of a handsome man from Brittany in northern France who made our neighbour look like a stick insect next to him, who was also so drunk he could barely stand, and a very short young guy about half the age of his drinking companions. The blonde giant immediately lurched over to Woody and me and started trying to talk in english, asking if we were "women of character!" "What character?" We asked, "Good or bad?". We humoured him a little as he was so very drunk. Disappointingly it turned out the bar was not serving food tonight, the owner, who we know very well was trying to get rid of my inebriated neighour and his two friends. So we sat outside, drank our drinks and left to go up to the next village, to the only other bar/cafe for miles around. At least the brazilian gypsy bar owner had some beautiful food, pork in a mustard sauce with rice, it was lovely. No sooner had the food arrived than the three drunks arrived!! It shocked me to find they had driven the 5 km up there!! Anyway, the bar owner refused to serve them, put glasses of water in front of them, and my neighbour ordered a pot of tea!! And showed it to everyone!! There was another couple with a year old baby in there and the 10 year old son of the owner watching a film on the computer. The drunk breton guy just suddenly started abusing the owner with long strings of insults in French, english and Portuguese, punctuated by the slang words for prostitute and slut in all three languages. Then he picked up a bottle of beer, shook it up and threw it all over everyone? My neighbour, who could not even stand, was apologising for his friend and trying to push his very tall friend out the door. The owner was phoning the police when the abusive guy walked/fell out the door, then we heard a van revving up and eventually driving off at high speed.......then, shock, horror, my neighbour and his small friend came back in, this meant that the extremely drunk guy had driven off in the van!! Apparently to drive 60 km to the village where he lived?? Leaving My neighbour and his nearly sober friend without a lift home. We offered but they refused. So that was Another Quiet Day in the Corbieres!! But it was not over yet....... When we got home we turned off the outside lights, locked all the doors and had strawberries and cream and Irish coffees, worried that my neighbour would turn up for a nightcap. His cows were everywhere around my garden, eyeing up the long grass and my baby lettuces on our side of the pathetic non electrified electric fencing. Four or five massive, grey Gascon cows with cow bells and very big horns were looking expectantly over the thin wire at us. We parked the Land Rover on the tiny bridge over the dry stream bed that was our only defence from the invasion of these beautiful ladies in search of a lush green meal. Just to finish off an absolutely crazy evening, we were suddenly aware that the clanging of the cow bells had hot louder and we shone the torch outside to see that the herd of hungry cows had all burst through my neighbour's flimsy wire fences and were lined up on our bridge behind the Land Rover, looking over the blue bailing twine I had rigged up as a defence when they all escaped yesterday?? Whatever next?? It was pointless trying to ring the neighbour who we presumed was still drunk in the bar in the next village, he was not going to rush down here to control his cows, he couldn't even control his own legs! And so to bed........LOL Tomorrow we thought we'd go to a bar a little further down the mountain for a meal. This bar is run by a threesome of one guy and two women who share a bed, a real 'menage a trois'. Another woman who frequents this bar looks like the french footballer Eric Cantona.......so I expect there will be a tale to tell tomorrow as well. Then Friday, back to the original cafe where we are booked in for a meal, and finally Saturday we have an invite to a barbecue......but by Saturday, according to the rumours we should have snow!! Never a dull moment here.

My Empress Tree is flowering!!!!!

No photo yet as I have a new camera and have not yet managed to learn how to upload photos, but was pretty excited when I saw the buds. Let's just hope they manage to survive the cold nights, and that we do not get a frost yet. Temp was 7 degrees C a few nights ago, but it has been up to 29 degrees C in the day, an Indian SUmmer for us.

See entry and video about Empress Trees below or in the archives.

Will add to this post later.

Quelque 'flocking' flocons

Here we go again.......more snow........at least this time they forecast we could get a metre....we are up to 60cms already...........

 

Larry didn't seem bothered at all.

 

About an hour ago, before we started having power cuts which has made uploading pictures difficult.

About 50 cms of snow on top of the bird flight which had to be knocked down to save the netting from breaking.

 

Glad to have the old Land Rover back on the road for this fall of snow in case of emergencies.

It passed its control technique (MOT) on Friday to our surprise!!!

I spotted this just before the snow started yesterday, it is now under a heap of snow......

Marmy the cat is back.....!

It has just occured to me that I do not have a recent photo of him, so must rectify that in case he goes missing again.  He just walked in this morning as if nothing had happened, he looks well fed, and no signs of any fighting, so I guess he may just have been visiting some neighbours.........Or maybe the cold weather and snow forecast made him think of his lovely warm bed by the stove.....who knows?  Cats choose who they live with after all.

The water in the barrel next to one of the chicken coops froze last night, and we had to break a thin layer of ice on the old washing sink that is a water trough for the llamas and goat, so it seems winter may have arrived at last.  Some ski resorts in France have been closed for two years due to the lack of snow, but some resorts were open earlier than usual in November because of early snow falls, the villages want to make the most of what  may now be shortened seasons.

Why call the blog 'Another quiet day in the Corbieres' ?

Because there is no such thing as a quiet day in the Corbieres'. This was a phrase coined by our group of friends here. We retired (!) to France about 7 years ago now and have not had a quiet moment since.........

We have loads of animals which occupy a lot of our time and are themselves highly amusing. The neighbours cows are always invading our territory.....time for a chase.....

Shiro the white Akita dog above is now nearly blind and totally deaf, but this does not stop him 'escaping' with our other dog, Frida, to pillage the local village.

Plenty of wildlife to watch, buzzards, Golden eagles (Aigle Royal), flamingoes on the salt flats when the weather is bad out at sea, and of course crows (Corbeaux) which is where the Corbieres gets its name from.

Local fetes with noisy 'bandas' walking around the villages in competition with each other.

Bull running between horses in a nearby village.

A fete in all the local villages every weekend from May to October. Meals, wine and entertainment for around 12 euros.

Flower and plant fetes.

The list goes on, but mainly just enjoying a change of life here. A day may start off quietly, then one thing leads to another..........someone needs help with a project, a lift somewhere, an impromptu invitation to a barbecue, or just a chance meeting in the one local shop.....and things mushroom from there..........

So unless we shut the shutters, turn off the lights, unplug the phone and don't answer the door, there is never, 'A quiet day in the Corbieres'.

The Corbieres is a very varied area of southern France near the sea and the Pyrenees mountains.

Cat in a Hat

Did not take any yarny photos today so here is one of our 11 cats in a hat.....

When ever I start an new craze I am glued to the web researching. I have 4 old fleeces, Cheviot and Jacobs which are in great condition so have started with these for practice, but it is a load of work, washing, drying, carding etc.

Bored with the colours already I started dyeing with plants as you have seen, today I won three Ebay auctions for dyes, including some lovely Australian Landscape dyes.

The wool in my first skein is Cheviot natural and Cheviot dyed with walnut husks.

Today another Ebay purchase arrived......Amazon UK have Lexi Boeger's book 'Intertwined' in hardback edition for about £12 ! Had to have it......only took 48 hours to get to me in France - great, it is sooooooo inspiring.

I have just been snipping up holographic Christmas decorations to use in my first wild spinning.....I am learning in reverse....starting with the hard stuff, in at the deep end. Lovely instruction pictures in Lexi's book, very simple. I also watched a YouTube video - Extreme tail Spinning. I don't have a link but if you put that into the search you will find it, after you sift through the tail spin clips for bikers.......

I am adding a list of links I have found in France, in case I have people linking from the Ravelry francophone group as finding unusual supplies in France is quite hard but getting better - finding Wacky supplies that I want is impossible, but hell I am creative, nothing will be safe here, if it stands still I'll spin it up!