birthdays

We celebrated my Dear Man's birthday on Saturday night with a Barbecue. An annual event that has been happening over the last thirty plus years (BBQ that is). In the UK we used to invite the nearest neighbours (that way they had no reason to complain about the music and revelry that went on into the early hours) as well as family and friends. We were never let down by the weather in the UK and never here!

So last weekend we invited our group of French friends as well as some English friends. There were a couple that we had invited that had never been to one of our 'gatherings' before and they brought the in-laws. The in-laws were worried about spending an evening with a lot of English people. They were in for a pleasant surprise as there were only four English there including us out of the 16 people! Unfortunately there were others both French and English, that could not come due to other commitments, it would have been great if they had.

Three young children, 2, 4, and 8 yrs came with their mama and mamie. They got on famously and Jensen was as good as gold, especially letting the youngest drape his arms over his back and walk with him. We couldn't have wished for a better behaved dog. All in all it was a good evening. The weather was fine, the food was good, the wine flowed but nobody got drunk (except for the birthday boy). A very restrained party indeed compared to ones in the past!!!

The weather has been gorgeous over the past couple of weeks, am spending a lot of time indoors, just taking a little time outside during the day as I do not want to get sunburn. Early morning and evenings are fine, so far all is OK!

Veg are growing, so are the weeds! We have had some new potatoes, delicious!! Peas have pods with peas that need to plump up and the carrots are coming along, beans need some water. There is a water restriction going on at the moment as well so we are being very careful. Helicopters come over and you don't know whether they are checking or not!!!

The grass is looking very dry and that weird line of brown that comes up parallel to the house is showing, I am sure there was a wall there sometime ago - for another building or not who can tell!! Do I call in Tony Robinson? Er, I think not....

There is a glut of cherries this year, so I have taken some and made (experimental) cherry aperitif - if it works we will see. I bottled it today and it seems a little 'raw' but after a few months it should improve. I made a cherry 'liqueur' seven years ago - I found the recipe on the internet and thought I would give it a go. It was made with yellow cherries which were growing in abundance. The tree has since been felled as it just died back!! This particular liqueur was a bit 'sheech' on the teeth when it was new. Now it is so mellow and delicious - but strong! So I have hopes for the stuff I have bottled today. Got to try and keep it for a long, long time.

I have nothing to say about the football!!

The dog needs a haircut, do I try it myself of get a professional??

The photo above is of one of our cherry trees, it's first proper flowering and fruiting. I hung some old cd's in the tree to keep the birds off and it worked, lots of cherries - yummy.

We had a pair of magpies nest in the top of a very high poplar tree (around 65ft). It was amazing to see the nest being blown around by the wind - a good 4 metre from side to side. They produced 3 youngsters!!! Wonderful to watch them try to get height on their first outing... But they did not go for my cherries!!!!