Gone fishing

After a break of at least 40 years I have now taken up coarse fishing again. Apart from the local lake here in Huelgoat which is within walking distance from my house there are 2 other lovely lakes, St Michel and Drennic, both of which are only about a half hour's drive away, in addition there are loads of rivers and canals so I will have no shortage of places to explore.
In total it cost about 200 euros to get started, I bought a carbon fibre rod plus reel, line, weights, hooks, floats etc

Included in the price was a yearly licence which covers the whole of Finistere apart from the Category 1 lake of St Michel and Drennic, There was an extra 20 euros to cover those which I bought at the same time. Apparently there are loads of good sized trout in both of those lake so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I did hear somewhere that there are carp up to 50lb in our local Huelgoat lake, I'm not so sure my first effort matches up to that!

This is adding a whole new dimension to my life, just sitting by the lake fishing on  a still peaceful evening with the ducks flying in to settle down and the swans coming by to take a look is a good enough reason in itself even If I never land a big one!

An update at last!

It's been quite a while since I've updated on here so I'm busy looking for excuses, of course I could easily blame it it on a lovely 2 week visit by my brother Roger, and my sister in law Margaret, but as he will probably read this I shall blame it on the weather instead!

In addition I can blame the weather on the progress in the garden, in truth that is part of it coupled I think with the tall fir trees sucking all the goodness out of the ground for years. I have to say I am more than a little disappointed in it particually given the amount of effort I've put into it this year. I shall put it all down to experience though and will try to get some manure from somewhere in the Autumn to turn in to improve things for next year. The broad beans have been a total washout and the peas are not much better. Some of the root vegetables may come on but I'm not hoping for too much now.

I have made another start on cutting down some more of the fir trees, it is a bit of a long winded job as I have to move the scaffold pretty much every tree and the clearing away and cutting off all the branches and twigs etc takes the biggest amount of time.

It has been over a month now since I submitted French tax returns and I have had no communication from them, I would like to think that I have filled them all out correctly and the longer it goes without hearing the more chance there is I think. Wish me luck!

After waiting what seems an age, we had a phone call this week to say that the workmen would be arriving the next day to install the wood burner we ordered at the beginning of May. They arrived at 9am and were cleared up and gone 3 hours later, I was very impressed. During that time they had to sheet off the room for dust bore a hole through the concrete capping slab on top of the chimney, bore another hole through the ceiling in the lounge fit a chimney pot and cap install a flue liner assemble and install the wood-burner including fitting an internal flue to the ceiling height, fitting a collar at the top and plaster boarding and skimming where the flue went through the ceiling and clearing away all in 3 hours for 2 men. I was most impressed and can thoughrally recommend the company

Cheminees Lencot, 

ZA Du Launay,

 29600 St Martin Des Champs 

Tel 0298 620191 

www.cheminees-lencot.com

All I have to do now is to keep enough logs cut and split to see us through the winter!

Potager progress

I though I would share a few photos of the vegetable garden, things have been pretty slow getting going here in Brittany and I think in retrospect that I was far to keen to get stuff into the ground and growing. I have talked to a number of people in this area and it seems like It's not worth starting planting until late April. So next year I shall take notice.

However things are moving at last and the potatoes at least are looking pretty good, just had a few of them touched by the frost, I've planted 7 rows of them mostly Charlotte so I'm hopeful for a good crop.

The broad beans that we started off in pots indoors and planted out in March have been overtaken by the beans that I planted directly into the ground soon after so that's a mistake that I won't make again in the future.

In addition, I have also planted out turnips, peas, garlic, carrots, shallots and broccoli which are all up now and beetroot, parsnip and cabbage.

The joys of the French tax system

We have been living here in Brittany now for 9 Months and are really beginning to feel at home here and part of the place. We made the decision, early on, that if we were to live here we had to commit ourselves fully.

We know a few people here that have been here for years but are still running around in right hand drive  UK registered cars, seeing a UK Dr when needed and still on the UK tax system, by doing this I doubt that they have to get involved with the French authorities hardly at all but there are obvious downsides to this, for instance, insurance implications on running a car here, having to go back to the UK to see your Dr etc.

This is not for us, so we have come to that point in the year when we have to fill in our first French tax return, it is also in our own interests to do this as the tax thresholds are higher in France than the UK plus, being on a pension we should get our Tax d'habitation and TV license reduced to zero.

However this is not easy, apart from the fact that there are 2 forms each 4 pages long in French to fill out showing all worldwide income, the forms are not available until late April and have to be handed in by the 31st May.
We went to our local tax office the week before last to collect the forms only to be told that they didn't have them yet but would be available in a week. So this last Thursday a week later we went back only to be told, not yet come back next week or we could drive to the larger tax office 20 mins away to collect them now.
So we decided to drive into Carhaix yesterday to collect them only to be told not yet, next week!
So the time left to complete these is diminishing quickly.
Cest la Vie!

Our new neighbough

We had an unexpected arrival in the form of a  new neighbough arrive today, a lovely baby boy,

 say hello to Colombo.

This gorgeous foal is only a few hours old in this photo and is still a little unsteady on it's long gangly legs at times and certainly doesn't want to be more than a few feet from his mum.

I was in the garden when Robert, our farmer neighbough took them into the field next to us for half an hour to get some fresh air and sunshine. I spent a very nice hour chatting to him in my very inadequate French and him in his slightly better English followed by a few glasses of wine back at his farm after they were taken back to the stables.

Apparently another one of his mare's is due to  have a foal in the next couple of days and a third in a couple of weeks time, I am looking forward to all the new additions.

Decisions Decisions

Previous to our moving to Brittany last year we have, for at least the last 30 years had a wood burner. The house that we bought had/has electric panel heaters throughout so although we would have preferred it if there had been a wood burner we decided that we would give it a go and see how we got on with the electric heating through our first winter here.

Well, the decision has been made, although the electric will provide enough heat and is clean and easy to use it seems crazy not to use all the wood we have readily available on our own grounds and as far as costs are concerned, although not cheap to install the wood burner will probably pay for itself in about 5 years.

The main reason though is that there is nothing like sitting in front of a real log fire.

So yesterday was our day for hunting down wood burners, It didn't actually start to well, I planned the day so that we could visit showrooms in the morning ( before the normal French 2 hour lunch-break ) and the afternoon. Our first visit was to Carhaix-Plouguer which is about 20 mins from us. After tracking the shop down, a bit of a feat in itself we arrived with a good half hour to spare before lunchtime and in the opening time shown on the door, however there was also a written note on the door saying that there was no one the but If we really wanted to see someone to give a call on the telephone number.
Not a good start and not something that inspires confidence!

So time for some lunch, we headed off to Morlaix about an hours drive and had a very nice lunch in a pizzeria along with some local Breton "Cidre" we finished nicely just after 2 pm to get to the first of the showrooms we planned to visit only to find in the first yet another note saying they wouldn't be open until 3pm and here was me thinking everywhere was in a recession and struggling!

Off to the 3rd showroom of the day and success, they were open!

They did have a very large range of different wood burners set off with a fully working one of quite striking design in the middle of the showroom that looked really inviting, lots of heat coming out from just a couple of logs and perfectly clear glass with no sooting up at all. A quick look at the prices of similar models soon put a stop to looking at anything like that as they ranged from about 4-6000 euro's without installation.

I did take a bit of a fancy to a retro looking model but decided against it. It is much more difficult than it would first appear to sort out the type that suits you best. There are lots of things to weigh up not least of which is cost but that also has to be put against quality ( cast iron is certainly preferable to pressed steel in my mind ) and other things , like has it a side door ( for easier loading ) as well as a front door plus we do like to have room on the top for heating a coffee pot so a large flat surface is another consideration along with the position of the flue. Then of course some have different airflows that can help the glass be kept clean. In addition to all of this the output in KW is very important.

We saw a very nice looking traditional style wood burner that seemed to tick all the boxes with the exception of the output being a bit on the low side so off we went back to the shop that was shut to 3pm.

A different selection of makes and models here but with the same sort of problems in getting all the features we wanted along with an affordable price. We eventually settled on one that we thought was very good value even though not all the features stacked up and arranged for someone to come and give us a quote for installation next week.

Back home with armfuls of brochures, specifications and prices and we realised that there was a larger version with increased KW output of the one we had liked in the previous showroom and this is the one we are going to settle on. It is a Dovre 760CB.

Now all we have to do is to get quotes to install it, that should be easy shouldn't it??????????????

Slow progress in the "Potager"

This is our first real planting season in the vegetable garden since we arrived last August and we are a little disappointed in that we seem to have what I call a cold garden. There are some tall trees in our neighbough's rear garden that restrict the sunshine for a few hours each day so consequently the frost that we have been having lately hangs around longer.
Of course this will change as we get further into Spring with the sun higher in the sky.

However, I have been busy and have put in loads of potatoes, onions, shallots, beetroot, turnip, parsnips, cabbage, carrots, asparagus, garlic and broad beans. At least the broad beans are starting to look OK

I have probably put in too many at one time ( 5 rows ) and will be putting more in later spaced out by a few weeks but I am sure if we have too many I can find some friends who would enjoy them.

I did get a head start with the fruit garden in the Autumn and the raspberries most of which were just sticks! are now coming on quite well and the rhubarb has got going at last.

It is also encouraging to see that all of the fruit trees we put in are starting to blossom.

I also got round to mowing the rear lawn for the first time this year, like everyone else in Brittany it seems we have a lot of moss in it! 

One job I have had to put on the "back burner" for a while is the cutting of my trees. There has been a pigeon building a nest in them for weeks and after watching it carefully selecting sticks and flying in and out hundreds of times I haven't the heart to disturb it . There will be plenty of time later on although I do what to get it all done this year as the difference in light and sunshine to the decking area is incredible.