Le Couvent Diary

 

 

Ali's in Australia visiting her family, it's lashing down with rain outside, I haven't finished pruning all the vines, but life is oh-so-sweet. I mean, a day pottering about, lugging logs, taking the quad in to the repair shop to be sorted out ready for our volunteers, supper and a game of Scrabble with my pals. How bad can that be?

We live two completely different lives here at Le Couvent. From May to September we are hosts for our lovely B&B guests, and we squeeze in a bit of wine-making on the way. We, willingly, put our lives on hold while we look after people. It's a very pleasurable way to earn a living. But in winter we are pretty much farmers and handy-women. We spend our days looking after this lovely old building and tending the vines. For most of the time the weather is crisp and stunning, although the wind can knock you off your feet from time to time. It's the season when we see our friends after having abandoned them during the summer. After seven years of life here in Roujan, I still pinch myself. How did I come to be so lucky?

P.S. If former guests don't recognise the photo it's because it's taken in our apartment, which you probably didn't see.

Phew, that's the excitement over for a while. We had a spiffing Christmas, with all the Gosling family together for the first time in donkey's years. My mother came to stay for a month and slithered back to Suffolk just before the heaviest snows fell. We had the best time while she was here and I'm sure she thinks we do nothing but party, so frequently flowed the invitations.

 

 

Ali hasn't had such a good time of it. First she snapped a front crown clean off on Christmas Eve. Mercifully our lovely dentist took pity on her and welded in a temporary one to stop her looking looking like a witch for Christmas. Now she finds herself stuck in snow-bound London, having popped over to Oxford for lunch a week ago. I'm very much hoping she makes it back on her revised flight tomorrow, otherwise I shall begin to suspect that she's avoiding the follow-up dental appointments and the pruning.

 

 

 

 

Having spent so much time frolicking about with my mother, December passed with barely a vine pruned, so now we are severely behind. We've also decided to burn all the off-cuts as we go (to save tripping over them all summer) so it's a painfully slow process. But the new pram-burner, Hot Pegasus, has worked like a dream. Coupled with the new, second-hand super-warm jacket I bought on Pezenas market last Saturday, I was sweltering today. Nevertheless, I was eventually driven home by sleet, yes, SLEET, in the vineyard. Ridiculous. This is the south of France so it is supposed to be sunbathing weather all the time, right?

 

 

 

The only irritating event over the past month has been the theft of my carefully devised plumbing system in the vineyard. So I'm about to replace it and I'm going to super-glue it in place, then dust it with that stuff that stains thieves hands. I'll then sit at the bar in the village and try to spot the miscreant. With a bit of luck I'll catch him/her red-handed.

And finally. Flynn won't go anywhere without his leather bone at the moment.  Here he is in the van, on the way back from a walk.

 

 

Happy New Year to you and yours. xxx

Our Christmas ham looks and tastes so delicious I thought I'd share my recipe. It's an amalgamation of many other recipes, so I take no credit for it.

 

 

Ingredients
1 x 4.2kg smoked gammon on the bone (ours was from Sainsbury's in Brighton, via the cross-channel ferry and a long drive)
1 large carrot, peeled
1 leek, trimmed
2 sticks celery, cut into four
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 bay leaves
1 litre dry cider

about 40 whole cloves for studding

for the glaze
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp mustard
100ml dry cider

1. Soak the gammon overnight in cold water and ditch the water the next morning. This gets rid of the excess salt.

2. Place the gammon in a large pan and cover with the all the ingredients in the first list and top up with water. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2 ½ hours, until the meat is tender.

3. Remove from the liquid and leave it to cool a bit. Carefully cut the skin off the ham, making sure to leave the fat on. Criss-cross the fat with a sharp knife and put a clove in each square. Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7.

4. For the glaze, warm the honey, mustard and cider in a pan and boil the mixture carefully until it thickens to a treacle-like consistency. If it isn't thick enough to glaze it will all run off into the bottom of the pan and turn to tar so black you'll never get it off. Place the ham in a roasting tin and spoon the glaze over the ham fat. Bake for 20 minutes. Don't be tempted to bake it any longer or the ham will become dry.

Tip: If the pan is difficult to clean afterwards, put an inch or so of water in it and put it on the cooker. Keep a gentle heat and stir - all the sticky bits will melt off leaving the pan clean.

This ham is so delicious it's worth doing it for a special lunch any time of the year.

Happy Christmas to you and all the ones you love.

Lizzie & Ali xx

A further update for fans of Darling the hen, who's becoming a big-chested beauty. She's getting all the best of the table scraps and provides endless entertainment just outside the kitchen door. Unlike our other bully-hens, she's also still laying, despite freezing temperatures and very short daylight hours.

 

The dogs are loving the underfloor central heating and spend entire days stretched out on the kitchen floor. 

 

The tree still has it's baubles as the cat's way too fat to consider knocking them off.

 

 

 

 

The entertainment season is well underway and this household is getting through industrial quantities of mince pies. The gammon arrived safely from the UK and is currently bubbling away in cider, along with leeks, carrots, peppercorns and celery before I roast it in a honey and cider glaze. I'm hoping it will be as delicious as yesterday's wonderful rib of beef.

 

 

 

Our lovely friends Chris & Sue sent us this photo taken from their house in Brighton. Meanwhile, we have kind Frances & Alistair bringing our Christmas ham and crackers from Brighton in a van driving through snow-covered France. I do hope everyone's safe.

Meanwhile, 'though we have no snow, it is absolutely freezing here. The godawful Godin woodburner in our apartment has fallen to bits so we've moved downstairs into the main house (and away from the sickenly addictive English TV we had installed recently - phew). We are now revelling in underfloor central heating and no lugging half-metre logs upstairs. The only drawback is that we're heating all the house for just three of us, so we're going through oil by the tanker load. The dogs are comatose in the unaccustomed heat and we're wondering if a t-shirt is too many layers. It's really not very green, and as much as I reduce the temperature, the boiler (french, obviously) takes no notice and wallops out the heat anyway.  Without the TV we're back to books, iTunes and Scrabble. All very gentle.

 

 

Ali picked up a beautiful Christmas tree yesterday so we had a jolly evening tossing up between tasteful or plastered. We went the tasteful route, so the tree is decked out in silver and navy. My mum, who's staying with us for December, says she still has decorations from 50 years ago. Thank God she didn't cram them in her suitcase along with her hair rollers.

She hasn't needed the rollers of course, because, bravely, she went to make an appointment for a shampoo and set at the Roujan hairdresser's. Dredging up french learnt 70 years ago she managed to negotiate an appointment for yesterday afternoon. On arriving home afterwards she looked somewhat shocked. She described the experience thus: "Despite the place being rather ramshackle it was the best shampoo I've ever had; the hairdresser massaged my head for ages which was lovely. Odd though, because she and her pal spent half the time outside smoking, then rushing in to say they'd seen five flakes of snow, and would I like to look." The hairdresser has no English, 'though she'd like to learn, so each time she picked up an item Mum had to tell her what it was in English. So all very jolly. And Mum says she'd like to go back before she flies home again. A success.

In the annual round of awards I'd like to offer one to the fantastic technicians at Santa Maria in St Thibery . They are gardening machinery suppliers and repairers. Three weeks ago I took our 14 year old Husqvarna tractor-mower in for repair. We'd driven it into numerous tree and vine stumps and the blade had sliced a hole in the metal protective skirt. We don't need to use it right now, but I reckoned they'd be overwhelmed with business in the Spring, so best to take it in. They rang to give an estimate of 400 euros to repair it. As the machines are 4000 euros new we bit the bullet. A week later they rang to say it was ready. I arrived with the trailer ready to pick it up. Not only had they done a complete service, replaced the blades, welded and redesigned the skirt so it can't happen again, they'd done it all for 300 euros. I love these clever french boys. They love showing off their artisanal skill and ingenuity. Thank you.

 

 

I bought this riveter the other day, drawn by the name. Do you think it precedes Nike's 'Just do it'?

 

 

By the way, if you're planning a trip here to Languedoc-land, do take a look at our new Bookshop . We've listed books, maps and walks you might find useful, and yes, we earn commission on anything you buy through our site. We're going to use the dosh to buy trees, so with a bit of luck it'll be like paper-recycling.

And finally, the weight loss thing is going well and I put it all down to the help and motivation I'm receiving from the DailyBurn website. They even have an app for the iPhone, and as an iPhone addict, it's a double incentive. Christmas is going to be a test though. We're going to be 14 for lunch and I'm cooking in the big kitchen downstairs. It should all be great fun and I just have to avoid the naughty foods. But isn't that all of it?…...

Ali and I send you and yours our very best wishes for a spectacularly happy Christmas and a healthy, happy 2010.

 

It's been a good day. A long happy birthday phone call to my mum kicked the day off, then the log man rang to say he could only deliver today at 10.45am otherwise we'd have to wait ages. Fine, except Ali and I had our first doctor's appointments for at least ten years at 11am. I'd been dreaming of the smell of burning oak more than antiseptic, so the wood man took priority.

 

As it happened we still got to the quack's in time, then waited half an hour to be seen. I was unsurprised to hear that I have worryingly high blood pressure and Ali's is perfect. I weigh and eat twice as much as she does so I'm back on a diet. Bother and blast.

The four cubic metres of logs looked heavy and cumbersome and I was sure it'd be too much to stack in a single session, but good pacing meant we got it done without wrecking our backs.

 

 

 

We're about to start pruning our vines, now that the leaves have fallen. For the past two years we've simply dropped the  cuttings (sarments) on the ground vowing that we'll go along afterwards to pick them all up. Of course we never do it properly, so this year we intend to burn them as we go along. The easiest way is to make a brûleur de sarments which is a metal wheelbarrow with an open oil drum on top in which you keep a fire going with the sarments. Easy peasy we thought, we'll find an old coach-built pram and lob an oil tank on top. Fine. So we drove off to Emmaus in Beziers hoping to find both. Monday. Closed. Dammit. We then went to a really crummy flea market and found the perfect pram lurking in a dark corner. OK, now all we need is an oil drum. Fifteen garages and agricultural service workshops and two rubbish tips later we had had no luck. Apparently the oil companies now collect them from the garages when they deliver full ones. As a last resort we screeched up at our lovely village petrol station  (from whom we buy our heating oil) - Garage Lafitte - where we struck lucky. Thank you lovely M. Lafitte.

So this afternoon we set to work, making the most appalling noise jigsawing open the oil can. Then bashing a fold into all the suicidal cut edges to round them off. And here it is, Hot Pegasus.

 

We'll let you know how long it takes for us to burn the rubber off the wheels.

Some time ago Ali bought some experimental ostrich steaks and we thought them tender and delicious. This evening we tried them again and I made the mistake of reading the cooking instructions. Make sure you cook it completely it said. So I did, and it was as tough as old boots. Last time I flashed it as I would have done with fillet steak. That's the last time I read cooking instructions.

Today we received a lovely e-mail from a reader of this blog who lives in South Korea. She gives Le Couvent a kind mention ,  for which we'd like to thank her.

 

 

 

Thanks for all the kind messages sent to Darling the hen who suffered at the beaks of her bullying sisters. I'm delighted to report that she's obviously much happier since moving to her own quarters - to the extent that today she laid her first egg for a month.

 

 

 

 

Darling is gathering a fan club, so, as her agent, here's some more information about her. She's a 9 month old Sussex Light bantam who adores kicking leaves around.

 

 

 

She was an excellent layer, but her production ground to a halt as soon as the big girls started jumping on her. Her response to their attacks was to run and hide behind a 1500 litre oil tank and refuse to come out until I called her, whereupon she would leap into my arms to be carried to safety.

 

She's an extremely friendly hen and it's a mystery why the others suddenly took against her after a summer of living together perfectly happily. Her favourite food is bacon, but when that's not on offer she's placated by pasta - tagliatelle by preference.

 

 

 

Her current aim is to dash into the kitchen and here's Ali persuading her otherwise.

 

 

 

We'll keep you posted on her progress.

All through the summer our lovely guests ask us how we spend our winters. Well, between wine-making, repairing the house, looking after hens, dogs, cat and garden, catching up with friends, travelling and so on, the winter seems to pass very quickly.

This week we've been trying to find a pair of iron 'eyes' that we can cement into the wall upon which to hang a heavy old gate. We're trying to keep our chickens apart since one of them has become seriously picked on by several of  the other hens. Hanging the gate will allow Darling (the hen-pecked hen) to have her own area away from the bullies. Finding the hinges has proved a hopeless task and has used up a good two days of this week. It seems we'll have to have a pair made. I'm making a last-ditch effort to find them at the flea market this weekend, before commissioning a pair.

Meanwhile Darling has a temporary new home outside the back door in a small courtyard. She now has a ton of leaves to kick around and no big girls to worry about. In fact she seems to have forgotten she's a hen and follows me everywhere, watching my every move through the office and kitchen windows, leaping into my arms the second I go out to feed her. It's all rather flattering.

Here she is in her new billet.

 

 

We're back from New York and I've hopped over to Suffolk to see my mother since I last blogged. We've also put up details of next year's volunteer week, and, although we have a pretty full list, we are still taking applications in case we have any cancellations.

I haven't had any time with my mum on her own since I was about five, so it was just wonderful to spend four days in England with her last week. We had a hugely enjoyable meander through all the places we lived when I was a young child, Bury St Edmunds, Lavenham, Hadleigh - all beautiful places in deepest Suffolk.

 

The day was a stunner, balmy and sunny and we  didn't have any of the frustrations that  an itinerary might have brought. Easy parking space on Angel Hill, totter through the alleyway to Churchgate Street, meander round the art gallery that sits in the space where my mum coiffed women's hair fifty years ago, and where my brother was born. Notice a good-looking french restaurant over the road. Have a wonderful lunch surrounded by french-speaking hosts and chefs - thank you Maison Bleue . Toddle off to Lavenham to buy luscious black Suffolk dry cured bacon , (which I've left in my mum's fridge, dammit). We laughed and reminisced and thanked God that we don't suffer the privations that those times carried.

 

I've lived in France for seven years now, and I'm used to the ramshackle look of the place. The summer dries and crumbles the stone of buildings, the water-starved hedges deserve the winter to regrow and are rarely trimmed, verges die down in the blasting heat of the summer and our eyes are rested by the reappearance of green, so grass is allowed to grow unchecked in the cooler months. It's considered vulgar here to make the outside of your house a showpiece, one keeps one's jewels hidden so to speak. So it comes as something of a shock to travel through the pristine villages of Suffolk. Pretty gentrified cottages that once held farm workers now coddle wealthy Londoners each weekend, hedges are clipped and trimmed as if prepared for Crufts, verges are tamed into billiard tables. It's all perfect and leaves me relieved that I'm not part of that form of keeping up with the Joneses. Life's a lot less stressful here.

Meanwhile, making the most of my absence, Ali set to and redecorated our bathroom as a surprise. And very beautiful it is too. Thanks a million.

It's feeling an unusually English autumn at the moment, since we now have UK television. When we arrived in France, mute because we didn't speak the language, we took the decision not to have British TV, reasoning that we'd neither speak french nor understand anything of the culture if we didn't move here wholesale. So we stuck with french television for seven years and our french improved immeasurably. Then my mum agreed to come to stay for a month, for the whole of this December. At 79 it seems unfair to force her to endure endless chat programs in a new language so we've used her as the excuse to install a satellite dish. And now we're enjoying watching all those programmes that our UK friends are sick of. Without subtitles. Or dubbing. But I'm conscious that it does shift the culture inside this old house, so I'm hoping the novelty will wear off soon.

 

Just to keep the English theme going I'm about to order my mother some chocolate as a birthday present from Cadbury Gifts Direct. Sadly they don't deliver to France, but it does make a change from flowers.

PS   A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all our lovely chums in the USA.

Ali and I are on our hols in the Big Apple. Today's our penultimate day and this morning we're hanging out in our wonderful Marmara apartment in Upper East side.

 

 

We've bought a ton of books, shoes, clothes and lots more luggage to carry it all. We found a hat, bamboo shirt and crunchy heritage apples in the Greenflea market;

 

 

cycled through Central Park and Harlem with the fantastic Johannes from Bike the Big Apple and a family from Nancy, France;

 

 

 

seen some powerful images of the World Trade Centre after 9/11 at the Ground Zero Workshop ;

 

 

spent a morning spiralling up and down the Guggenheim Museum marvelling at a multitude of Kandinskys;

 

 

failed miserably in our attempt to book a Liberty Island trip online; had lunch in the sublime Grand Central Station Oyster Bar and several other Texan, Indian, American restaurants.

 

 

Tonight we're off to Falai , way downtown, for some Italian deliciousness. As if all that eating isn't enough we're taking a food & culture tour round Brooklyn tomorrow before flying home via Heathrow and Toulouse.

You really can pack a lot into six days without feeling wrecked at the end. Next week I'm going on a diet though. It's been tough on the waistline.

It's hurling rain down in a waterfall. Ali and I have spent an hour mopping up the office which has beautiful, if completely ineffective, doors. These ancient crusty blue doors are full of holes and let in all weathers, but we're loathe to replace them with something modern that will scream at the rest of the house. Idem the windows. So when it really rains we have to circle bearing thick towels, mops, buckets and crossed fingers.

Last weekend was terrific, however. We spent three sunny days doing a fantastic dry-stone walling course just north of Montpellier. It's an hour from Roujan so we had a pretty early start, driving through the sunrise. On Sunday morning there was a huge dead wild boar lying in the outside lane of the autoroute. I doubt it would still have been there by the time the cops arrived. White vans were slowing down, the drivers imagining a long slow casserole for supper. 

Our fellow wall-makers were all French and worked for Credit Agricole bank. They were so charming I didn't have the heart to tell them we'd moved our accounts to another bank after being driven to distraction by CA's inefficiency. Credit Agricole (like all other huge institutions in France) has this excellent system that sponsors part of the cost of such courses for their employees. At least if the bank overcharges you or makes erroneous deductions you can rest assured that their employees will be able to stonewall. 

During the course we dismantled a collapsed wall of around 12 metres and rebuilt it from scratch to it's new former glory. We can't wait to get going on some projects in our vineyards. We have tons of stone, and most of it's flat, making it much easier. Watch out you volunteers, we have surprises in store!

 

 

 

It was a relief that Ali could come dry-stone walling. She'd spent the previous week horizontal after having fallen down the stairs whilst carrying the cat. Gouttiere got off scot free but Ali suffered two twisted and swollen ankles and a badly bruised and twisted knee. Thankfully she's walking OK-ish again now as were off on our hols in two days' time.

We will be flying from Toulouse to Heathrow, then on to JFK New York. We have the lovely Lee coming to dog/cat/hen/house-sit. The dogs adore him as he's around ten feet tall at least, and he plays with them. Unlike me, on both counts. They'll have a very good time, as long as the rain clears up. Thanks too, to all our pals who said they'd box and cox if we really couldn't find a dog-sitter. A thousand thanks to Lee for stepping up to the plate.

Just in case three cars weren't enough, we've just bought another. It was just too pretty to pass by, and I adore driving him. Ali will too, when she can bend her knee enough to use the clutch.

 

 

Marcel the Renault is 29 years and 7 months old. The age is important. The French government has just changed the classic car age from 25 to 30, so in changing his registration plates (which you have had to do here on the change of ownership since 1950) he has to have the yukky new-style modern plates for 5 months until his birthday next March when he can have the lovely old type again. Daft eh?

 

 

 

We closed for the winter a week ago and since then we seem to have done no end of clearing up jobs. The trick has been to have no lists, no preconceived ideas of the forthcoming day and no outside calls on our time. That way we've gently muddled around the house tidying a little here, cleaning a bit there without it costing too much energy-wise. It's amazing how much can get done by taking it a tiny chunk at a time.

Having missed them all summer I have been off to my favorite markets in Clermont l'Herault and Pezenas, to a boot sale in Canet and the giant flea market in Marseillan. What fun. My super bargain find was a complete and perfect John Jaques croquet set. "C'est anglais" said the man on the stall. "Je sais, moi aussi, j' suis anglaise." "Au niveau de prix, c'est bon?" "Mais non, c'est beaucoup trop cher, vous m'avez donner le vrai prix, pas de l'occasion."  What would I know? I've never bought a new set, nor even played croquet, but he seemed convinced. At this point his price halved and we started to negotiate. Finally I handed over 25 euros and heaved away a large wooden box, anticipating some fun with guests next summer. Poor chap. I hope he managed to diddle the next punter to make up the shortfall.

 

 

 

 

The weather's been exceptional too with each bright, hot sunny day following another. I swam in the pool yesterday in celebration of the fact that it had finally started raining despite being 27 degrees. The rain stopped instantly some three minutes after it started. I was somewhat relieved, having spent the day digging fifteen large holes in the amphitheatre vineyard - not wanting them to collapse in a deluge. This afternoon I'm picking up 15 eucalyptus trees to plant. During the summer guests often tell us to 'keep the change' when they are settling their B&B bill. We save it up in a commemorative tankard (Runner Up - Dustman of the Year 1987) and tell them we'll spend it on trees. This year we'd saved 130 euros. I scoured the internet for the least expensive young eucalyptus trees and by complete chance tripped across a private wholesaler in Roujan, just 200 metres from Le Couvent. So the planting ceremony will take place late this afternoon, just before the rainy season begins tomorrow - I hope.

In three weeks' time we're off on our own hols - to New York - perhaps. The apartment's booked and paid for, as are the flights, but we've had a slight dog/house-sitting disaster as our planned sitters couldn't get the time off work and everyone else is busy that week. So we're panicking. I'm sure something will turn up otherwise we'll have a very nice holiday to give away. If you're free from 23-31 October and fancy looking after Le Couvent, two very nice dogs, a cantankerous cat and nine hens, do drop us a line. Previous guests and friends only please.

Ooh, by the way, if you're house-hunting, there's a wonderful house for sale in nearby Servian. It's been superbly restored by some good friends of ours and there is absolutely nothing that needs doing to it. Have a look here: Maison Vanille .

 

The guests have all gone home, the rooms are cleaned for winter, the cooling fans await their winter home in the loft, but the pool's still swimmable. Yesterday was our first day without guests for five months and I felt truly ill after a rather-too-long lie-in. 

However, today has been magical. I woke at 6.19 am, just as I have all summer - one minute before the alarm, although it is now turned off. I felt fit as a fiddle and zipped off to the market in Clermont l'Herault. My basket crammed with plants, 20 Christmas cauliflower, 2 basil, 15 oak leaf lettuce, 3 celery, along with finely cut jambon sec, a paillasse loaf, tiny coffee meringues, yellow courgettes, five different types of tomatoes, leeks, french beans, pork loin and the crowning glory - huge cep mushrooms from the hills in Lozere, I was home again by 10am.

 

 

I'd be very happy to spend this winter gardening, so this afternoon found me planting all that I'd bought this morning. The potager has been easy to prepare this autumn, thanks to a fantastic attachment made by Wolf tools. It hoes and breaks up the soil to a fine tilth like nothing I've ever used before. God knows what it'd be like in wetter, heavier soils, but here, in the dry, fast draining bauxite of our vineyard it is brilliant. 

 

 

 

The potager is so packed with winter vegetables that I've started filling up the extra space with Australian everlasting flowers. I have no idea how they'll do, but we'll see.

 

 

I'm just waiting for guests to come to breakfast on this, the first day of autumn. The skies are rather grey and there's a brisk breeze blowing. It's not particularly cold; I went to buy the bread at 6.40 in the usual single-layer summer garb.

After breakfast I have to clean the pool. To be frank the water's decidedly nippy and I guess only the hardiest of guests will venture into the pool, but I'll clean it because it looks so inviting when it's glassy. In any case the sun is due back out for the rest of this week, with temperatures forecast at 27 degrees.

Ali's been in England since Friday and is due back this afternoon. She's currently driving my late step-father's ancient VW Golf laden with a Sainsbury's order. My mother wanted the car to go and it's worth nothing in the UK, so we'll have it here in Roujan where we can share it around. Finally, a car with no dog hairs. Curiously, it's probably worth thousands here if this example is anything to go by. It's a year older - 1992 - and a mere 2000 euros.

 

 

Well, one hopes this isn't too much, but no-one's made an acceptable offer for nearly a year now, so we have to assume it's either expensive or no-one wants it - surely not.

 

And this girl looks none too happy at having to hold the essential long thing.

 At just 25o euros this is hard to resist don't you think?