Christmas Greetings

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Autumn at Chenevaux

Nature has been working its magic and providing us with its own intricate seasonal decorations.  One morning we went outside to find all of the trees and shrubs wrapped in fine silvery thread decorated with shiny dew drops.  With an autumn mist hiding us from outside view it was like a stage set out of a magical dreamworld.  The colours in the trees have been lovely this year too with lots of acid yellow brightening up the ever shorter days.

 Never mind, in just 3 weeks we will be over the worst and heading back to summer again.  The buds are already forming on the trees and where we had to cut the roses right down along the back of the Farmhouse to render the wall ( a job we had put off from last year knowing it would be nasty, and messy, which proved to be the case as the weather was awful so it dragged on over about 4 weeks for 8 days of actual work ) there are small shoots breaking out of the stems.  The wall looks great now too, and by next spring the grass will have sorted itself out again with a little tlc.

Chipping the old render off - Mark up a ladder again!

6 tonnes of sand in the garden

First covering of new lime render being applied - my poor garden!

Speaking of roses, our order from David Austin arrived a couple of days ago.  This consisted of 3 William Morris climbers, 3 Grace and 3 Benjamin Britten shrubs, to be followed soon by a climber called Crepuscule, which hopefully will be more attractive than the name suggests.  When I sent off the order Mark suggested that we had enough roses "maybe about 30" but on a quick count it must be more like 60 now, there's always space for more.  They love the clay soil here and tolerate the hot summers and cold winters.  After all the rain we have had in the last couple of months they should get off to a good start.

A few weeks ago a friend gave us a small carrier bag full of ceps, or porcini, which grow wild around here.  To dry them we removed the gills and then left them on a rack over the log burner for about 3 days until they were completely shrivelled.  The bag full is now an envelope full and I am looking forward to using them in a hearty winter meal before too long.  The added bonus is that every time I open the kitchen cupboard a glorious waft of earthy sweetness meets my nostrils!  The shelves are also full to bursting with jams and chutneys as we had a bumper crop of figs at the end of the summer.  Just as well as the apples were a disaster and the late plums were non-existent.  We did however have our first, small, crop of Bramleys, which went very well with some blackberries in a crumble.  Add to all of this the Christmas cake and pudding ( thanks to my Mother ), sausages, cheddar cheese and other goodies we brought back from a recent visit to Guernsey and we are well stocked up for the winter.
Christmas is coming - the supermarkets are stuffed with more chocolate than you could ever imagine and in the next few days Santa will be seen climbing up virtually every chimney stack in the village.  Wonder what he will bring us this year!