First Fruits!

The day of departure for Mel & Jase dawned and it was appropriately gloomy and rainy so although the new "regime" (as they say in these parts) or health kick is about to begin, we didn't wish to be too hasty so I had a last run (in the car!) to the bakery for pies - given that we had a birthday celebration (photo above) yesterday morning and Mel & Jase took us out for dinner last night (photo of the MOST amazing steak tartare below!), this was most definitely the "last hurrah" before we entertain our next guests in 10 days by which point we're hoping the 2kg's we put on during Mel & Jase's visit will have disappeared perhaps taking a few more with them - wishful thinking?...perhaps.......only time will tell!

So it was that we began the day a little somber, sad to say goodbye to our friends who have been out to visit us every year since we bought 'the farm' 5 years ago.......until........we happened to spot 3 ripe tomatoes in the veggie patch which cheered us up enormously!  I reminded Tony of the biblical concept of "giving back" the first fruits and so we thought it only fitting to gift these tiny tomatoes to our chums (well - 1 for each of them and 1 for us to share!!) - these particular tomatoes happen to be about as big as my thumbnail (photo below) but our much larger varieties do seem to be starting to go red as well which means we may have our first salad from the veg patch sometime this week - exciting times indeed!

Given the soon to be abundance of ripe fruit and veg (the fig trees and plum trees are absolutely loaded), we have noticed an abundance of bees, wasps and flies which isn't terribly pleasant given they seem just as keen on attacking our cheese, bread and wine at mealtimes as they do the fig and plum trees.......so, I discovered a super way to use up the excess of overly sweet elderflower cordial I made last month by pouring some into an empty water bottle - cutting the top of the bottle off - turning the cut bit upside down and placing inside the cut bottle to create a funnel of sorts and this seems to create a very effective trap for these animals that I am becoming less fond of by the day!  I've attached a (perhaps slightly disturbing!) photo below of our bee and wasp "winnings" since the creation of the trap!

In between guests, Tony and I hope to knuckle down and really go full steam ahead with more planting and also make a serious dent into some of the more manageable renovation projects - today, given the rain, the laundry I'd proposed to do is an impossibility (with no drier) and so I shall tackle the removal of the very last room of original wallpaper - not a fun task but made a little easier by the wallpaper steamer which was given to us a few years ago and which has proved invaluable.  I don't think there was a single wall that wasn't papered when we first took possession and the photo of the wallpaper below (note the clever way of framing parts of wallpaper on the back of the door) which I shall be removing today is about the most tasteful example of what was in the house - certainly the least offensive, hence the last to come down but we've decided it really is time now - off with the old and on with the new (although in this case it will be paint in lieu of wallpaper with no matching frames on the back of the door!).

I shall hopefully be posting photos of our abundance of crops soon and shall of course let you know how the "regime" is going although having just made a batch of walnut and cherry flapjacks (with the imperfect cherry jam) and our breakfast of pastries, today may not have started too well!!!  The 'Tour de France' will be passing near us on Monday and we're going to try and get close in the hopes that this will renew our resolve and get us back out on our bikes regularly!

On that note, I shall leave you all with a 'Bon weekend'!