Salad Days

One of my greatest surprises is the beauty to be found in polytunnels!

Olive Grove

This olive grove lies at the foot of the cliffs upon the top of which the 'village perché' (perched village) of Les-Baux-de-Provence sits. This photograph was taken from the ramparts of the medieval castle as the sun sank lower in the late afternoon.

Sunrise, Sunflowers

I got up at dawn yesterday to go and photograph the sun's first rays as they hit the sunflowers growing near Tarrascon, about 15km south from our place, between Avignon and Arles.

The low angle of the first sun rays makes the light amazing - causing the sunflowers to glow.

And if any body doubts that sunflowers face the sun, they definitely face East to greet the rising sun as is shown here.

If you'd like to see more of these shots, click on the title of this post to link to our Picasa web album.

Shooting the Cat

It's not easy, photographing the cat, you know.

Especially when it's a wild one that's adopted you.

She'll let us pet her now, but it took a long time to gain her confidence.

And perseverance pays off in the end.

Lindsay has named her Sweetie-Pie.

She doesn't come in the house.  But she does catch mice so she's welcome to stick around!

Roussillon

This is Roussillon in the Luberon.  Until the beginning of the 20th century it was a centre of pigment mining.  The pigments were used for paints of all kinds, and Rousillon is a good advertisement for its own product as all of the houses are rendered with various tints and shades of the local red rock.

Indeed, I am told that Roussillon means red earth in the old language of the South of France.

Les Sentiers des Ochres, Roussillon

These cliffs are the old ochre works in Roussillon.  In the 19th Century natural pigments were mined from these hills.  

The disused quarries, called "Les Sentiers des Ochres", are now open to the public.  The circuit takes about an hour and a half.

First you descend the stairs into the bowl of the quarry.

The cliffs glow with intense reds, yellows and pinks.

Strange pillars of stone are left standing.  Perhaps the rock in these columns was not rich enough in pigment to warrant cutting?

Spiky Garden

This is an allium christophii blooming in May in our Spiky Garden.  I've just found that its common name is Star of Persia.  I can see why.  I, however, having forgotten the latin name over the last year, have been calling it the football flower because its large, spherical flower heads are almost as big as a football.

Just next to it is an Acanthus, also in bloom.  Its tall, architectural spikes of flowers reach about 1m50 (5ft) in height.  And along side them are two red hot pokers...

I reckon it's pretty obvious why I call it the spiky garden!

I've planted the spiky garden to surround one of our shady pergolas.  Along with the acanthus, red hot pokers and alliums, I've mixed in several grasses, gladioli, agapanthus, rosemary and honeysuckle for year round interest.

At the moment, our antique iron day bed is under the pergola and the honeysuckle with its heady perfume is blooming too.  All of which makes this an ideal spot to put your feet up and chill for a while...

Jerusalem Artichoke and Carrot Soup

Debbie made the soup, I Polloked it up!

Here's a soup that our friend Debbie made. It's simple but delicious...

1 onion chopped and fried in olive oil. Then add equal amounts of peeled and diced carrots and Jerusalem artichokes, fry a little more and then cover with water and boil until the veg is soft and mushable, then mush it. Add more water to gain your preferred viscocity, bring back to the boil, and serve.

I added drizzles of pistachio oil, to bring out the nuttiness of the Jerusalem artichokes, a little cream, to add a little richness, and a good grind of black pepper, for spice. It all looked very Jackson Pollock.

Jerusalem artichokes are called topinambours in France. They have a bit of a reputation as poor people's food here, as it was all that was available abundantly during the winter months of the war, so older people tend to shun them. They also have a reputation for causing flatulence! (Although we've never noticed the effect.) So another name for this picture is "Art for Fart's Sake"!

The nicest photograph of a polytunnel that you'll see this side of tomorrow (probably)

I took this yesterday evening, out walking our friends dog.  If you'd like to see more, you can in this Picassa album.

Hanging in there

This little chap was clinging to our door the other day. He's a tree frog and they seem to have colonised the garden. They're very cute and make lots of noise, sounding remarkably like ducks when they get going and give us a proper frog's chorus. Here's what he looks like the right way up.

Sound and (En)Light(enment)

Just took Debbie and Mark to see the Cathedrale d'Image at Les Baux. It's based in the old bauxite mines where the aluminium ore was cut out in blocks to leave the mountain hollow.

Here are Debbie and Mark exploring an abandoned quarry nearby.

Just round the corner from that, we discovered a quarry still in use.  They're mining the stone (prized for its whiteness and purity) for its own sake nowadays, the seams of aluminium ore being long since mined out.

So this set the scene for the Cathedrale d'Image - a 'son et lumiére' show inside the old bauxite mines - truly a cathedral sized space.

While suitably evocative music plays, video projectors beam images onto the the quarry walls, floor and ceiling, to create a completely consuming visual experience.  You can literally walk inside the picture.

The theme changes every year.  For 2008 it's van Gogh, whose association with this area is well known, him having been based in both Arles and St-Rémy-de-Provence for his most creative period at the end of the 1880s.

The show uses not only his most famous paintings, but also photographs from the era and his sketches and drawings.  Note the scale of the space, ably demonstrated by the couple standing in the foreground.

Obviously there had to be sunflowers...

So quarries and van Gogh turned out to be the theme for the day.  Later on, we were in St-Rémy and walked out to St-Paul-de-Mausole - van Gogh's asylum.   Just behind the asylum is the Mas de la Pyramide, where, at the centre of an olive grove, stands the last remnant of an ancient quarry.  Why that bit was left, I have no idea.

Debbie, forever the botanist, was in raptures about the Judas trees flowering all around (deep pink blossom in the background).  She was also pleased to hear that for once it wasn't going to be John and Ruth that were out with me as I took blog shots and insisted that I include a picture of her.  Here she is...

Flower Carpet

At this time of years a small white flower, which looks a little like rocket, fills the olive groves and vineyards.

This particular olive grove is in Rasteau - between Orange and Vaison-la-Romaine - a village more famed for its sweet wine.

Birthday Parcels, good enough to eat!

Last night we cooked a meal to celebrate one of our guest Fiona's 21st birthday. We cooked:

Twice baked parmesan soufflées

Filo parcels of chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and thyme

Raspberry Pavlova

Everything was greated with reassuring oooohs, (especially the Pavlova, which was getting on for half a metre in diameter!) and all was polished off to everybody's delight.

The filo parcels are fun to make.

For each parcel you'll need to pieces of flattened out chicken breast about 8-10cm across. Flatten chicken breasts buy spreading them on a solid board, laying a piece of cling film over the top of them, and then bashing them flat with a meat mallet (or similar club-like implement such as a wooden rolling pin). Then cut them into 2 or 3 suitably sized pieces depending on the original size of the fillet and the size to which it bashes out.

The chicken breasts need to be part-cooked before being baked in the parcels as filo pastry cooks very quickly. I poached them (to keep the chicken good and moist) in a broth of water, rosé wine - white would work just as well, a large, smashed clove of garlic, a good hand-full of fresh sage leaves, four bay leaves and salt. I brought the broth to the boil and then switched it off, allowing it to steep while I bashed out the chicken breasts.

When I was ready to go, I brought the broth back to the boil and then placed half a dozen chicken pieces at a time into it and put a lid over the pan. It took a minute or two for the broth to come back to the boil, by which time the chicken was poached through. So I fished out the chicken and repeated the process with the remaining batches until all my chicken bits were poached.

All of this, I did earlier in the day. I put all the chicken pieces in a pyrex bowl and, once it had cooled, covered them with the strained broth to keep them moist and to put maximum flavour into the chicken.

At the same time as preparing the chicken, I also prepared the tomato stuffing that completed the parcels. I fried finely chopped onions, with roughly chopped sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms, a good bunch of time leaves and salt an pepper. As the mix softened and started to catch, I loosened the mixture with a glug of balsamic vinegar followed by a generous couple of glasses of wine. This continued to cook until all the liquid was absorbed, but the mixture remained moist. This, again, was then placed in a bowl and covered ready for later.

Variations which we might try in the future - using black olives instead of mushrooms, swapping thyme for fennel seeds, including roughly crumbled feta cheese (a good veggie version too?)

Fiona's a vegetarian, so a veggie version was prepared for her. In a heavy-bottomed pan, I dry fried a tablespoonful of pine nuts. To them, I then added around half a cupful of the tomato stuffing mix and a splash of water (as the pan was very hot and I didn't want the mix to stick). I then stirred in a tablespoonful of arborio rice and let the mix cook a little. I then added a little water and stirred it in, allowed the mix to boil until all the liquid was absorbed and then repeatedly added a little more water and boiled until absorbed, until the rice was soft. Effectively, I made a risotto without much rice in it. This too was made in advance.

In the evening, the oven went on at about 7 (the twice baked soufflées needed to go in for their second baking too) at around 180º. It then took about 40 minutes to make ten parcels. For each, you need two sheets of filo, cut in half. The first filo sheet is laid on a clean surface in roughly brushed with a little melted bitter, the second then laid at a right angle over the first. Again brush with melted butter and repeat for layers 3 and 4, this time laid diagonally to the first two layers. In the centre of this filo flower, place a chicken piece followed by a spoonful of tomato stuffing as a kind of sandwich filling, and then complete the sandwich with another piece of chicken.

Then brush a little more butter around the exposed filo and draw it up to envelope the chicken/tomato filling. Scrunch it together in a kind of rough 'bunch' at the top of the parcel. Brush on a little more butter (this sounds like a lot of butter, but it's really only smeared on) and then place on a well greased baking sheet.

Cook for between 20 and 30 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden.

I cooked a little extra stuffing (enough for about another tablespoon each). To this I added a tin of tomatoes that I first blitzed in the food processor. I then heated this through to make a sauce to accompany the parcels, which were also served with broccoli, green beans and chive mashed potatoes.

Down by the Sea

It's only 45 minutes from our house to the Mediterranean at its closest and Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is generally where we head for.  In the height of summer it can get pretty busy, but in the winter, you share the beach with only a handful of other people (and horses).


We went down a few weeks ago with John and Ruth.  The sun was low in the sky, creating some fantastic shadows.


A few guys were out fishing (strenuous stuff)...


... and they weren't the only ones with fishing on their minds.

Les-Saintes-Maries is the principal coastal town of the Camargue - the marshy area in the Rhone's delta famous for its flamingoes and white horses.  It's a great beach for drift wood.

The beach features a wooden bar/café in the summer months, built on wooden piles.  In the winter they take the café down, leaving just the piles...


The piles and their shadows created fantastic graphic patterns...



... as did the sun through the fences placed along the beach to stop the sand blowing away in the winter winds.


And then along came a group of riders, on those famous white horses.



As the afternoon drew to a close, a fantastic light show was laid on for us.



This is Ruth and Lindsay walking back towards Les-Saintes-Maries.


That's the tower of Les-Saintes-Maries' medieval fortified church on the horizon.