Reluctant quince

Another beautiful sunny day. Crisp wind, but not cold enough to slow the work on the roof. I have so little time today as I have to go back to London. But time enough to pick another small number of olives from the tree. We have barely a kilogram, but I will cure them. Just to show that it is possible.

M. Brun came by to collect one of the bulldozers and check over the work. Hopefully his assistant will push the tree stumps further down the hill in our little rubbish bin at the far end of the property. Out of sight is best for such massive garden rubbish. And he may even remember to give the reluctant flowering quince a tug. Nicolas spent hours at the job yesterday. One wire around the shrub, the other around the cherry tree that also has to be removed. And he managed to yank out the cherry and not move the quince an inch. Stubborn bugger that quince. It’s in the middle of the artichoke bed. So unwanted. Hopefully when we come back it will be gone and I can put two more artichoke plants there.

And that was it for gardening so far. Too much time spent on indoor tasks when I’d rather be doing outdoor things. Hopefully this winter will be the main building work, and then it will be frolics in the springtime. There is a lot of driving to do here. But when you can drive back from St Michel de Chabrillanoux (to the mayor’s office for the declaration de travaux permit which I forgot to organise earlier) listening to Alicia Keys belting out her version of Wild Horses and winding around these incredibly beautiful single track roads, life isn’t all that bad.