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What a well groomed bush

March 3, 2021 by Chantal Chaney

Saturday

Matt’s been tackling a bit more of the kitchen, seems he is going to need a bit more help with this so my lie ins may have to be curtailed.

Another big gardening job on my to do list for today. I need to remove the old growth from some of the rear of the house. Once that is done, I only have to do the 30cm strip at the back of the house.

Matt is keen to get up to Super U and Rural Master (outdoor brico). I’m not sure we managed to get what he was looking for, but… I’m glad Matt could lift them but 70L was a bit big for me.

Back at the house Matt fixed the hedge trimmer and was looking for a suggestion of what to do with it. Naturally, I found one. The outside of the ‘walled’ garden was a hella mess. It’s a bit wonky but it look a hell of a lot better.

One thing I spotted in the front was some new growth, I’m sure I’ve seen this before and I had, over by the well. Apparently it is called Periwinkle. As well as a few Muscari under the large Magnolia by the veranda.

Evening and it’s time for dinner, TV and, apparently, another crazy golf match. I was much better second time around. Clearly however Lucy has been cheating and getting in lots of private practice! Anyway, it’s late so time for bed, Matt has already gone and 12:30 at home is 1:30 here. Night all xx

[27 February 2021]

Sunday

Turns out that today is job pingpong, swapping between things Matt wants done and things I want done. This whole not making super loud noises between 12-4 on a Sunday is really irritating. I was up and helping Matt at 11. I would much rather have spent another hour in bed but it really pushes the issue and I knew Matt would appreciate it.

We’ve been spending this time making some more progress in the kitchen. It seems that Tonia was right, apparently we do need some more rubble bags, main reason being that they get so damned heavy when you fill them full of concrete.

Apparently pulling on the metal re-enforcement helps it to break up, but it also makes it a massive pain to clear up all the cement that was previously on top of it. Thankfully Matt has a solution.

Since we are now out of time it was back to quieter jobs. Number 1 on my list for a while has been getting a decent plan of the new veg plot so that I can get some of the onions in at least. Thankfully Matt is now on board and helped out. Of course I will need some time to draw it up by hand in my garden diary (that still hasn’t been started yet incidentally). It looks so much better planned in pencil than as a printed version, it feels more real and personal (and is a good excuse to spend some time drawing out my ideas).

Next up, getting the new light in the salon, and while we are at it giving the floors and chandelier a good clean, no point waiting till it is >3m up before it gets a good clean.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until it was up that we found out that only 2 of the bulbs were working and we only had one spare but until it was up we couldn’t have known.

Time for lunch, quiche and cornichons. Since we’ve had some lunch it’s time for the daily garden trawl. This tree looks like it is about to burst out into a beautiful purple. Gardening in France tells me it is most likely a Tulip Magnolia.

Next job it is off to go ‘investigate’ the wild bamboo section down by the railway tracks. As I understand this is fair game as it is on public land adjacent to the road. Still overly British and cautious however we just trim back a few ready to dry out. If we are lucky this might be a good source of free canes for the garden!

Since we can’t make a lot of noise, we decide to take the opportunity to checkout the nearby lake. It was quite a walk but is definitely going to make a great wheeling track, if Matt remembers to charge ‘his’. So this time, you get lambs, vistas, a chateau, and lots of the Garrone where we stopped for a couple of beers. Obviously, being lockdown, the restaurant/bar was closed so we had to take our own but it was really nice to just hang out in the woods by the incredibly rapidly flowing river.

On the way home we spotted this crazy golf course. It looks incredibly hard. It’s making virtual mini golf look much better… or is it?!

We also collected some fern leaves covered in spores to put in the shaded part of the garden. No idea if that might work to grow some new ferns but what kind of self respecting girl leaves home without her secateurs and a baggie to put her cuttings in?!

Back at the house and, since the weather is due to turn soon, I wanted to get the cloud tree finished. As I may have said before, not a bad job for my first ever attempt, at least in my opinion. I told Matt that I shall call the other one Claude and this one Claudia.