A cleansing ale

Ten thirty pm and I’ve just sat down on the sofa with a cleansing ale. What a long day. It seemed as though I was in the kitchen the entire day, but I actually managed to do a spot of strimming first off.

I’m not madly happy with the new strimmer head. It’s heavy and felt a bit inacurrate. But a good farmer never blames her equipment, so maybe I just need to get used to it.

I confined my work to just two areas: the path from our top parking area to the Le Buisson further down the mountain.

It is a route which is popular with horses, but humans tend to get snagged on the brambles. So I concentrated on cutting back the brambles and just leaned on other plants to make the path easier to negotiate.

Next was a plod al the way up to the top terrace to do a spot of clearing at the entrance to the forest.   We pulled back the fence amd there were lurking brambles and random plants to tame. I didn’t venture far into the forest, but worked my way around to the spring.

I sowed a wildflower meadow mix when the proper water supply was put in.   Two years ago? Time flies. And I’m delighted to see that the flowers are coming back each year.

Needless to say I didn’t strim them. Just cut down some of the height of the grass growing nearby and attacking some of the worst of the broom.

It had started drizzling when I started and my shirt was getting uncomfortably wet. I thought I would just duck down to the potting shed and reduce the height of the festuca glauca grasses nearby.

But when I popped my head into the shed, there was Artur, just settling into one of his woven baskets. He took one look at my strimmer, narrowed his eyes in a fierce glare and dared me to crank it into life.

I’m such a softie. Any excuse to stop strimming.

I picked flowers for Daniele instead. And Artur got his wish for a good six hour snooze.

And lucky me, in exchange for half a dozen lilies I received a tray of nectarines. Lovely.   I haven’t made the nectarine and almond jam for ages, so today seemed to be the day.

Luckily the Olympics were on the tv, so I was well entertained as I cooked up a storm.

My tally for the day: two batches of hummous, one batch of pesto, one batch of tomato and rosemary sauce,  five pots of spicy plum sauce, two fruit sorbets (apricot and lemon verbena, raspberry and mint), three large tarts (plum, jostaberry and raspberry, apricot) six bottles of syrup (jostaberry, blackcurrant, raspberry ane red currant), two batches of flapjacks, and last but not least, five pots of nectarine and almond jam.

Exhuasted? Indeed.   I know just how Sarah feels having to stand on a hard floor for hours on end.   And in a kitchen.

But it feels good to get ahead. Five guests tomorrow. I’ve even prepared the cheese platter.

Naturally there is more to do. But I’ve conquered most. Why, I might even get some time to go out and play tomorrow. After vacuumimg. And bed making, and pool cleaning. And. And. And.