Wednesday 8 August 2012

August at Chenevaux

One of Mark's paintings for the exhibition
Mark is spending all of his time in the studio finishing off paintings for his exhibition that starts on Saturday (11th August, more details at www.markjudsonart.blogspot.com ) at the little chapel in our village.   He emerges for meals and then retreats again.  Mind you he has got a TV in there and every time I go in there's either the Olympics on or cricket!  We can't believe how well Team GB are doing, and as for Andy Murray winning a gold medal in the tennis singles, wow!  Let's hope he can come back to Wimbledon next year and win that too.

White peach
Despite the late frost in April we have a few peaches on the tree at the front of the house and they are just about ripe.  We have been picking them for the past couple of days - lovely and juicy and very tasty.  These are the white ones whereas the ones in the back garden are yellow ( the flesh that is ) and although they are nice these are better.   The figs are growing as well and in a month or so we should have a bumper crop.  More jam and chutney making on the horizon!  The second variety of plums are just about ripe too though these are eaters rather than jammers!

Sunflowers as far as you can see
The sunflower field opposite the house has been awash with colour for weeks now, though the heads are starting to droop as the seeds develop.  They won't be harvested until the plants have gone black, at which point they look rather dismal.  After harvest there will be lots of flower heads left on the field so we go and collect up a load to feed the birds with over the winter.  Mind you we don't want to think about winter yet!

Next Wednesday 15th is the annual brocante at our village - St Pierre de Maille, and we are having a stall this year.  Its usually really busy and will be great fun, if exhausting!  I must restrain myself from buying books as at the last count we had 165 on the shelves in the house waiting to be read - perhaps we can get rid of some of the other 100 or so in the gite, or start a library!