The Perfect Day.

Weekly shopping in the morning. Very quiet roads. Very quiet supermarket. Filled car with petrol, €40. Perfect.

I sowed a few seeds in a seed-bed; Cavolo Nero, Flat Leafed Parsley, and Swiss Chard.

23 C all afternoon. Shorts, tee-shirt, no socks.

BBQ in the evening. Cumin flavoured Breast of Lamb (my favourite cut), with simple salads. Max Marino accordion music in the background. Red wine.

What could be better than that?

Beurre de Cacahouète

I'd just finished a pot of Peanut Butter, and was cursing their design department for the crazy shape of the jar (which makes it almost impossible to get to the last few remaining scraps which become caught inside the bulge at the bottom) when I noticed it says on the label 'The UK's Best Tasting.....'.

Not believing that any Peanut Butter could hail from the UK, I looked-up Sun-Pat on Wiki. Yes, there it was; Sun-Pat was a UK company. I had always automatically thought that is was American.

In fact since 2012 it IS now owned by an American company called 'Hain Celestial Group', who also own Frank Copper's Oxford Marmalade, and Scottish rival 'Keiller's Marmalade', as well as Linda McCartney Foods. Previously Sun-Pat was UK owned since 1946.... Nothing is sacred.

Frank Cooper's Marmalade (other than Lady M's) is probably the best Marmalade around. Much as Sun-Pat Peanut butter is also amongst the best. Hain's are obviously discerning buyers.

I find is sad that so many UK companies are now owned by foreigners. But, ever since Kit Kat was bought by Nestlé; I've stopped caring.

 

Interior, chez Cro.

A couple of unwise people have asked to see the interior of our wee 300 year old cottage. Unfortunately I can't post a video, Blogger refuses to download (not enough space on 'one drive' I think), so here are some interior stills. Please excuse the mess; I've made no attempt to tidy.

This (above) is my 'office', where I do all my writing, etc. We rarely use the dining table at this time of year, so my use of it is reluctantly tolerated. As it becomes warmer, I shall move back into the studio.

Ancient pine Welsh settle with golly, door to studio, and old French dresser with part of my extensive collection of French antique white crockery, etc.

A few pictures, stone niche (carved and installed by me), a lovely old English Beech wooden dresser (which is much bigger than it looks, and unbelievably heavy), and Lady M's collection of exotic Gins. 

And finally the fireplace with unlit wood-burner, and the original old stone sink to the left. One has to remember that this was originally the 'kitchen'; they cooked on the fire, and washed-up, etc, at the stone sink. Life was hard 300 years ago. That's Lady M's sofa well positioned next to the fire!!

All sofas and chairs are covered against Billy hair. Please don't tell me I'm a messy b*gger; I know that already.

That's it. All rather confused and cluttered, but typical of an old cottage.

What a difference a day makes...

Days have been quite monotonous recently. We keep the same hours, do roughly the same jobs, and stick to our usual meal times, etc. 

However, occasionally along comes a day that is totally different; yesterday was one such.

Planting out seedlings at Haddock's at this time of year is always hazardous, but I invariably find myself doing so; much earlier than is wise. Yesterday I planted my Tomatoes, Aubergines and Peppers.

The Tomatoes are all in large pots, against a south facing wall up at the barn; they are in excellent soil and 'goodness', and the Aubergines and Peppers are planted-out at Haddock's. 

The Toms need to be planted away from Haddock's because of wretched Tomato Blight/Mildew in the soil.

Toms are Marmande 'Hymar F1', Aubergines are 'Baluroi F1', and the Peppers are 'Lamuyo F1'. Varieties that are all new to me.

We can have frosts here until 'The Ice Saints' (11th, 12th, 13th May), so one needs to be cautious. I have placed plastic pots near each of the plants, to place over them in case any frost is forecast.

Then just before lunch, a lazy delivery driver phoned to say he'd left a parcel for me at the tobacconist's at my nearby town; 7 kms away. He couldn't be bothered to deliver it to my front door, as was expected of him. First thing in the afternoon, I hot-tyred it into town to collect.

I had ordered this 'fire pit' (above) online. It's a good size (almost a metre in diameter), reasonably attractive, portable, and very solid. It will be ideal for summer evenings spent outdoors, when the warmth of the day begins to fade. If anyone is looking for something similar I will give details; so many fire pits are over-fancy and ugly; this one is 'simple'.

Of course it had to be assembled, but in this case with just a few screws that fixed the three folding legs.

A busy and productive day all round.

Iain Dale's comment on the EU's vaccine behaviour.

This is my attempt to resolve complexity; if you find Brussels as confusing as I do, this may help.

I have made my own comment about this affair, but here is LBC's Iain Dale saying much the same.

Iain says it far more succinctly than I can. So this is the EU vaccine saga in a nutshell.

He is 100% right in everything he says.

More from Chez Cro; looking south. The tour continues.

Looking away from the cottage; this is what we see. I adore this view from outside my front door. Just fields, woods, and silence. This is my dog-walking, mushrooming, and psychiatrist's-chair country. It's where I feel alive, where any problems dissolve, and where I feel at one with nature.

I know every spot for the very best mushrooms, I know where there are abandoned apple trees, and I know where the Badgers and Foxes live. This has been my intimate stomping ground for the past 47 years.

A lot of people might find this far too isolated, but for me it's just perfect. 

 

Keeping time.

Neither here in France, nor in my home town of Brighton in the UK, have I needed the assistance of a watch. 

Here our village church is just two kilometres from us, and the bell chimes the hour and half-hour.

Back in Brighton this Clock Tower is just a couple of hundred yards from our front door. It was built in 1888 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, and in many ways is the central point of Brighton. The Clock Tower doesn't chime, but the original old mid-14th Century St Nicholas church, which is even nearer to us, does. Time follows us around.

Our Brighton house is in a very quiet little street which is positioned just off one of the busiest streets in town, which connects the railway station with the town centre. On occasions the crowds can be a nightmare, but our little street seems almost unknown, and remains a haven of peace and quiet.

The town clock has a rising and descending sphere on top, which takes one hour to perform its ritual. Not long after the clock was built, the sphere was abandoned, as it made too much noise. I believe it now performs again; maybe they have also removed the noise.

Anyone interested in Clocks, or even the history of fabulous Brighton, will find more here....

 Clock Tower, Brighton - Wikipedia