fish wife

We have friends coming for lunch so I sent BB off to the shops this morning to get some vital ingredients because it was windy, so he couldn't work - oh, that new excuse!! I'm on the vodka chapter of my Marks and Spencer Cocktail Bible ("the Perfect Party Companion") at the moment and thought I'd make French Leaves for apéros (2-3 ice cubes, 2 measures vodka, 1 measure oj, 1 measure pastis).

I'd woken up very early (8.30 am) and come downstairs to make a cup of tea and then became so caught up watching the McCain Obama debate on YouTube that I still wasn't dressed by the time BB left, around 10.00 (sluttish behaviour, I know, and most unlike me). Just as he was about to set off, I realised 'the' vital ingredient wasn't on his list and rushed out to tell him - as two hunters rounded the corner.

What a sight I must have looked: standing on the doorstep in my nightie at that time in the morning, shrieking "VODKA" (French translation VODKA), like an old fish wife.

(cider) suits you sir

I'm going to start a workshop: "How To Hold Your Glass Upright". You can be standing with four or five guys, all with their glasses of pastis tilted at a 45 degree angle, and you'd think the room was listing to port.

In the old house I was permanently mopping up whenever we had visitors - Baby Chou to shoe shop ashishtant: "Do these come with kitchen roll attached?" You've seen Exhibit A and are probably wondering, why bother, but even I have standards!

On Sunday at the fête du cidre Mini-B had an obtuse moment. When we arrived he was standing chatting away to another farmer, glass of cider slopping all over the floor, when a guy in a pristine white T-shirt carrying a man bag (obviously not from round here then) came and stood just behind him. As Mini-B waved salut to us, I watched in amazement as the contents of his glass ended up all over the foreigner's shirt.

put your hands in the air and give me all your fishcakes

Mini-B came for lunch today - Bloody Marys and fishcakes. There are only three occasions when I feel I really need to vacuum: when there's tumbleweed blowing through the house, before guests come to stay and after Mini-B has eaten here. Today, when he dropped the fifth piece of bread on the floor and miraculously went to pick it up, he asked if I didn't own a hoover! Eh?

After the incident with the Belgians (when he poured beer into his wellies), as a joke I frisked him as he was leaving - and found a fishcake in his trouser pocket.

The boys were clearing up this afternoon, burning everything that hasn't been taken away, and I suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia at seeing our first matrimonial home being torn down - even though the photos of the rooms we lived in resemble productions you'd expect to see in a criminal trial (see 'Exhibit A - Bathroom' below).

They've just finished playing at building bonfires, so now - quid pro quo - they're off to play at catching a bull.

just call me Bugsy

We've had a bit of rain (and snow higher up) so the pace has slackened but BB was back up on the roof today lifting the last section off the left side. Nearly everything coming off is being "enquired after": the tin to cover woodpiles; bits of wood to build a shed; the old slates for landfill. Someone even stopped and asked if he could take the old storm shelter over the front door. Who needs a skip?

Mini-B is here nearly every day now since he hasn't much to do. He's winding down the milk production side of his business and paying another farmer to do his hay. If he stops selling milk for ten years he gets a subvention (subsidy) under the Common Agricultual Policy which is probably more than he would get for selling his milk. And now that all three of his tractors are broken down (as well as the C15!) due to poor maintenance, it's cheaper to get someone else to do the hay rather than fork out for new machinery.

It's that time of year when we rarely have to go shopping because every day something turns up on our doorstep. In the last few days we've been given: eggs, pumpkins, grapes, cauliflowers and a dead rabbit. Mini-B's mum offered me a live one recently - because she said it "reminded her of me"?! Didn't know how to respond to that really.

do my ears look big in this?

The demolition of the roof is progressing quicker than I expected. I thought BB would have to remove each rafter and batten and purlen individually like he did the last time (in the house we're in now) but he's cutting the roof up with a chainsaw and lifting huge sections off at a time with the crane. And people are turning up every day to help. It's amazing what a whiff of danger will do - that intoxicating mix of power tools, a steeply sloping badly burnt roof (and probably a pastis or two!) and the guys are lining up.

Roquin came round last night with a bottle of the first grape juice from the pressoir (wine press). He had his cute dog with big floppy ears in tow - which BB said would look great in his sidecar!

... for better, for worse ...

I was going to talk about les coulemelles (parasol mushrooms) ten inches in diameter that Nainbo gave me yesterday (which you cook like big fat steaks) and the bolet the size of a football that Roquin's sister was proudly showing off at the vendange, but I've been on about mushrooms rather a lot recently so I won't.

The vendange has left us with a few aches and pains. To think that I wanted to spend my summer holidays picking grapes in my youth! I'd had enough after half an hour yesterday but at least I didn't have to carry the plastic barrels full of grapes (weighing 50 kilos) on my shoulder down a steep goat track like BB.

He went off to look at a sidecar today after the deal on the one he'd ordered fell through. I was sure this latest obsession would pass - like the unimog and the lada (!?) and the bevel edged swan necked paring chisel - but tonight he suggested we re-new our wedding vows: "... for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for two wheels or three."

He spends all his internet time looking at sidecars - which I told him was unhealthy - so this morning when I found him glued to his computer I asked him, accusingly, if he was looking at them again and he said: "No, I promise I'm looking at naked ladies."

BB's little helper

I ended up going mushroom picking yesterday after all but with Mini-B and at a much more civilized time - in the afternoon. I could hardly get into the passenger seat of his C15 for all the empty pastis bottles, packets of syringes (for injecting his cows), spanners and bits of old rope in the footwell. Quel bordel! On the way up to the forest we passed lots of parked cars - mostly Italian, who flock over the border to pillage our superior mushrooms.

When you come across a petit coin carpeted in yellow (chanterelles) or black (trompettes-de-mort) it's like finding treasure. The down side is that it takes ages to clean them and remove all the beasties.

BB ventured back up onto the roof today but he had a little helper, our friend Top Modèl. Top Modèl basically did all the work while BB handed him tools and as a result nearly all the old tin has been removed. If we had him helping every day the house would be finished in a jiffy. Tant pis!