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Well, after 8 years since we moved here we have found some part-time work and have just spent 12 days thinning apples in a local-ish commercial orchard.  This vital work is carried out every year in June, after the natural fall of young fruit, to ensure a good, even and healthy crop which will ripen ready for the harvest later in the summer.

Unused to long days standing we were a bit apprehensive when we turned up at 7:45 a.m. the first day, armed with a car full of cool and warm weather clothes plus a full set of waterproofs – just as well as it belted down with rain a couple of hours after we started work and this was very testing, both of our fitness and our morale.  Wet to the arm-pits is not fun!!  Our waterproof boots turned out to be mis-named and we had to change sox and footwear for the afternoon session – but the welly boots were not needed by then as the sun came out and we had to start shedding layers as we picked and snapped our way along the rows of trees, fumbling among the wet leaves.

How difficult is it to take off surplus pears and apples??  We soon found out – each variety requires a different technique and getting that wrong may result in tendonitis as I soon found out.  All the action is on the thumbs with the fruit either being cracked in half (Conference pears), rolled off against the hand, leaving the stem on the tree (Williams Pears), or rotated upwards to remove fruit and stem (Gala apples).  Then you have to decide whether ‘medium and left on’ on one tree is ‘too small and taken off’ on the next.  Decisions, decisions.  Bearing in mind that the future crop (and the farmer’s income) is in our, very amateur, hands certainly adds a sense of responsibility to the occasion and makes us very conscious of the quantity of apples being chucked onto the ground.

We worked within a small team of six plus both the farmer and his wife who joined us from time to time – this gave us heart to see that they were ‘hands-on’ and prepared to endure the changing weather conditions along with their workers. Within a few days we were working in temperatures well above 30 degrees centigrade, so our rain-wear was discarded and instead shorts, caps and sun-cream were pulled out of the bag.  Working alongside their 14 year-old daughter, in the pouring rain that followed a thunder-storm on the second week, was heart-warming as she never complained or asked for privileges – just slogged on, dripping, the same as the rest of us.

Of course the highlight of any period of work is always pay-day and we were thrilled to see the money in the bank, but the experience has given us more than just a few hundred euros extra.  We’ve learned something of the precaricity and the long hours and demanding work required year after year in order to produce food but also what pleasure can be achieved from working in a quiet orchard with just the bird-song and occasional conversation to break your thoughts.

We had a great, if tiring, time and look forward to the picking which starts in late August.  Our respect for the people who produce the apples we buy at the weekly market has grown immensely and the price paid seems very small compensation for what is involved.

Merle

It’s been some time coming but here we are at last!!

The finished study

The final week was concerned mainly with completing the small pine-cone in the same way as the large one (paint it all in the dark tones and wipe out the light scales, then finish off the scales by painting in the correct tones to show the form.)

The box and background are every bit as important as the items in the set-up, so pay careful attention to the cast shadows (under the fruit) - they are crisper and ‘harder’ in shape than the form shadows (on the fruit) which must be softly blended to infer the underlying roundness of the form being painted. Also make sure that the different items sit properly on, and in front of, the support and background – check perspective and horizontal lines..

Using the same method as on the pine-cones I have also recently done a rose at my evening class with more success than previous attempts at home, so I am now inspired to have another go..

I first tackled the darkest side, furthest from the light, by painting in the dark tones and the medium-light areas were then wiped out using turps. The lighter side was ‘blocked’ in using the correct, slightly lighter tone but I left out the very lightest areas as I didn’t want to contaminate them with a darker shade. They were painted in using very pure, light colour – in this case Cadmium lemon, and then blended with the adjacent darker tones until the curving form was achieved.

Again, always paint in the nearest background area at the same time to ensure that the correct comparison can be made, feathering the edges to allow you to come back later and finish it off .  This is vital.

Rose study

Another very important thing I am learning from my tutor is to be generous with your paint – mix up a decent amount and make positive marks with a well-loaded brush. This will then ensure that you have enough paint on your canvas to move around, allowing you to blend the adjacent tones to create the all-important roundness.

Have fun – the most important thing is that you try.

Merle

The first seeds were sown just two months ago and already we have been regularly cropping the spinach sown in between the rows – intended to provide a green mulch they also can be lightly cropped for salad leaves or used in vegetable juices.

We have also harvested our first row of radishes and have re-sown more mixed in with lettuces – these are showing through at last despite a very cold couple of weeks that threatened everyone’s tomatoes.  Now we are going through a dry patch and are having to keep our seedlings alive – using whatever water we can save from the kitchen plus our dwindling rain-butt supply.

Rows of spinach between the other seed rows.

We are continuing to mulch with the spinach leaves as these keep the earth shaded and, hopefully, provide food for our friendly worms – not that there are many of those yet as the garden used to be the lawn….

The tomatoes are in, struggling in a very dry bed against the wall on the opposite side but we hope we can get them going well with mulching and regular feeding.

Despite the lack of size we are managing to eat something from the garden every day – maybe only a handful of salad leaves or some herbs but recently we have started cutting our lettuces, so we are very encouraged by the results of our small effort.

Merle

After a massive loss of information when our back-up managed to erase part of the external disk, we are now back in business and I can catch up with the painting class.

Stage 2 and 3

I have done the ‘poster’ (top right hand corner) and, hopefully, you can see the small fragments of colour in their respective positions – essential to show their relationship with adjacent colours and tones.  It is also important that you sketch in the ’shadow map’ showing the shape created by the cast shadow.

The apple is treated in exactly the same way as the pear – starting with the darkest dark then working the adjacent colour and so on, until you arrive at the lightest light – remember always to blend the colours and tones to show the underlying ’roundness’ of the form.

The large pine-cone was first painted in as a solid dark shape – a bit scary to begin with but once you start wiping out the light parts of the scales with a small brush dipped in clean turps (wiping off the excess first) it all starts to make sense.  By ‘drawing’ in the scales in this way the whole thing takes on a more realistic appearance and it also simplifies the process.

This method prevents you from getting too bogged down with the details – once you have defined the position of the individual scales you can then start painting each one – checking for the reflected or cast light/shadow and whether or not the tone is warm or cool.  Take each scale individually and the task becomes more achievable.

Remember as you paint each item to include the adjoining background and foreground colours so you have a constant reference for your fruit or vase or whatever.  You cannot paint the correct colour without this reference.

One other thing I am learning is to paint with larger brushes – having come from botanical watercolours I am more comfortable with tiny sable brushes but am slowly training myself to use larger brushes and to concentrate on form, colour and tone and let the fiddly details take care of themselves.  For preference I use brushes by Raphael – series 8772 ‘Kevrin’ (a natural hair) in a shape known here in France as ‘langue du chat’ – more forgiving than a blunt square but less fiddly than the fine point.

Have fun!

Merle

I was filled with apprehension as I approached the spare room door. Beyond it was a task I was not looking forward to but one that had to be done. I was armed to the teeth. I had enough hardware on me to supply an army.

One last check:

scissors – magnifying glass- two reference books – envelopes- paper

I was ready to go!!!  I opened the door and before me was the largest pile of used Machin postage stamps I had ever seen. It was my task to sort through them, picking out the best for my album. Ha! easy you might think. And quite honestly so did I.

A very reduced stockpile of Machin stamps

3 days later with a spinning head and squinty eyes I knew different. I have never seen so many different variations of a stamp. What with differences in thickness of numerals, serifs or non serifs, litho or photo, colour shades, Elliptical perforations and so on and so on…..

Was I successful? Well on the one hand  I successfully sorted out the stamps that will go into my album from those that will now be my seconds. On the other hand I will never be able to look at another stamp without checking for its serifs or elliptical peforations.

Darrell

I have been going to an evening painting class since September 2009 with a wonderful local painter called Gundula Jacobs, (’Google’ her and see some of her work shown by an American gallery).  I have learned so much that I thought I would write a diary as I work through one of my paintings to show the step-by-step progress and try to share the reasons for doing it the way we do.

So, here is my newest still life or ‘nature mort’ as it is known in France.

Stage one - the sketch

The set-up is of a wooden box on top of which is one large pine cone (2nd from left); one small pine cone (on the left); a pear (now completed) and an apple (extreme right).  The light source is top right – see the dark cast shadow under the pear. The background is a piece of mid to dark blue fabric.

To start with I sketched in the various forms using willow charcoal – not a charcoal pencil as they tend to be too waxy and you cannot dust off the marks if you want to correct your drawing. Once satisfied with the layout, dust off the surplus charcoal and, using a fine-ish brush and yellow ochre paint, re-draw the sketch, taking the opportunity to make any necessary corrections. It is useful to sketch in the cast shadows.

Always start the painting by putting in the darkest dark – in this case the cast shadow under the pear. Then work the dark form shadow on the pear immediately next to this keeping the edges soft – edges that are too sharp give the image a ‘cut-out’ effect, an error I am still making.  Continue to work the form of the pear remembering to blend the colours from darkest to lightest to ensure that the round ‘egg-shape’ of the pear shows.  Failure to blend these different areas will result in a flat appearance and the image will lose it’s reality.

To complete your work on the first image, put in the background colours immediately adjacent to the painted form – in this case the blue fabric, leaving a feathery edge so that you can come back to the area when you wish to complete the background.  This will give you the correct colour and value to compare against those of your pear and you will then be able to determine if you done them correctly – not too light or too dark, neither too warm nor too cold….

As I was in too much of a rush to start painting, I omitted to do my ‘poster’ – a small abstract ‘aide-memoire’ that determines, before you start painting, the relevant colours and tones.  This looks like a patchwork sampler and is great to have if your work is spread over several weeks – you can always re-mix the required colour because you have the small sample of it there in front of you.  I will be doing this next week and will share it with you.

Merle

Given any opportunity some of even the smallest villages in France will find an excuse for a party and last week we joined our friends, Willy and Olive, in their local carnival at Chigné (near Noyant/Le Lude) where we had full use of their cosy chambre-d’hôte for the night.

Who on earth..?

A chance to wave good-bye to winter and welcome the spring seemed a good-enough reason to celebrate and so, despite the quite heavy rain, we donned our borrowed costumes and masks and walked to the hall where the crowd was gathering.

Once the candle-lanterns carried by the children were alight we followed a small van, playing very loud music, in a short tour around the village. Back at the hall we danced around the post to which a straw-stuffed figure with a white face and wearing a faded, once-stylish, blue floral dress was tied, then ceremoniously set on fire….

Dancing around the fire

After all that excitement we were relieved to move to the warm (and dry) hall where the disco was already enticing people onto the dance-floor.  No French evening is ever complete without something to eat and drink and the lethal sangria that was served went down far too easily, along with home-made cakes of all descriptions.

Although not planned that way, it was also Olive’s birthday and their wedding anniversary – a great evening.  Thanks for sharing it with us.

Merle

The frosty weather seems to have finally released it’s claws from our tiny back (north-facing) garden and we have been inspired to get out there and start sowing our first few seeds – covering them with a fleece blanket as we still don’t trust the fickle March weather.

Despite the minute size of our patch – just 8m x 1.5m, we are determined to grow as much as possible, following a ‘Companion growing’ system, which relies on plants being good neighbours. The first thing we have done is to mark out our rows with bamboo canes and then sow spinach between them – sounds crazy, but this will form a green mulch, which will be added to during the year in the form of vegetable leaves etc.  The idea is to cover the soil to protect it from drying out, and to provide much-needed food for our friendly worms.

Darrell sowing the spinach seeds

With rain forecast for this week-end we wanted to get as much in as possible and so far have radishes, shallots, spring onions and carrots just waiting for the alchemy to begin.  Indoors we have some broad beans and sweet-peas in pots and we bought a dozen lettuce plants from our local Monday market which are outdoors under a small plastic tunnel.

We have plans for tomatoes, more salads, herbs and leeks – not to forget our two espalier pear trees which gave us a wonderful crop last year.  All good stuff!! Keeps us in touch with where our food comes from.

Merle

I’ve just spent two days fishing during this first flush of spring weather. Merle came with me  to paint or read, whatever her fancy. The scenery was beautiful, on a river by a picturesque bridge opposite an ancient fortified farm.

Not a bite!!!! Slipped over in the mud which really cheered me up. Still with good company and lovely food to eat who’s complaining?  That’s fishing.

Darrell

As a South African, far from her homeland, biltong (dried, seasoned meat – a bit like the American ‘Jerky”) has always been something I have missed from my childhood and I have finally made some for myself.  I was inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who shared some interesting ‘meat preservation’ recipes with his viewers in the weeks before Christmas 2009 – the bacon and dried, Serrano-type ham were tempting but the biltong really got me – and it seemed to be so simple as well.

I bought a small pack of thinly sliced beef shoulder from the supermarket and then spent ages calculating the spices I needed for my small portion of meat – Hugh is obviously geared up for mass-catering..  After the grinding, rubbing and soaking in a plastic box, I dried it for about 5 hours in the oven at the lowest setting and then transferred it to our cool, airy cellar where it hung, covered with a clean cloth, for about a week. The result – a bit too dry and very peppery, but biltong, nevertheless. Good enough to bring memories flooding back, so worth the wait.  I also made a piece of ‘Jerky’ from another recipe to compare – a subtle difference in flavour but basically the same sort of product.

500 gms lean. long-grained beef from the forequarter;  2tbsp salt;  2tbsp soft dark brown sugar;  2 cloves garlic;  1tbsp coriander seed, toasted and ground;  1tbsp black peppercorns, crushed;  1tbsp ground turmeric;  1tsp dried chilli flakes;  3tbsp malt vinegar.   (tbsp=tablespoon;  tsp=teaspoon)

Cut beef along the grain into long slices 2-3cm thick – remove fat.

Mix salt, sugar, garlic, coriander, pepper, turmeric and chilli. sprinkle a layer into a large glass dish then add meat. Cover meat evenly with remaining spice mix, rubbing in well. Sprinkle vinegar evenly over both sides of the meat and rub in.  cover and refrigerate for 6 hours, turning and rubbing meat after 2hrs.

Remove meat, shake off loose seasoning and pat dry with kitchen paper. Hang each slice, with sting, from a hook. Leave to dry in warm, dry place for at least 4 days – longer is fine.

Can also be dried by hanging from top shelf in the oven (put down some aluminium to catch drips or another tray).  Put on lowest setting, with fan if you have this. Leave for 4-5 hours then hang somewhere cool and airy or even outside if suitable. Cover to keep clean.

Wrap in waxed paper to store. Eat sliced into small slithers – nice with a cold beer….. Very salty, so can encourage you to drink more than you should.  Be warned.

Merle