A week at Montrouch in June

Well this Sunday is free, so a lazy time has been had by all here at Montrouch. All we have to do now is a couple of hours watering but that has to wait until the sun is off the garden and poly tunnel.

The last week started all sedately with a lovely Sunday lunch with John and Lynn from la Cave in Maisons and our old friends Paula and Tony from Ribaute.  John had just come out of hospital, he had three stents popped in to ease his clogged veins but apart from a general tiredness he was back to his old joking and fooling about.

We had decided on a simple menu, Serge’s asparagus, Pascal’s eggs hard boiled, some over priced scalops from Leclerc with a butter sauce followed by Christophe’s red veal, actually six month old free range heffer that is raised with their mum until  slaughtered, mushroom sauce, new potatoes steamed with mint, and broccoli from Bruno. Paula had made a gluten free lemon merange desert, and she brought one of her delicious home baked gluten free loafs of bread so we ceoliacs, Paula has the same allégies as me, were well content. It was one of those lunches that went on and on, and it was about six when we finally got everyone back in the Landy and down the hill. The weather was beautiful, full sun but not too hot, and no wind. Luckily Pascal had given me his market umbrella so we eat in the shade on the terrace looking out at Queribus and Canagou. The washing up was done as we went along so the wreckage to cleat up at the end was minimal. All we had to do was a couple of hours of watering after everyone had left.

Monday was a little busier. We have reached the end of the vegetable season so we piled loads of tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes into Landy and set off for Pascal’s place at La Tour de France.

There are two ways into Pascal’s. Last week I had done a delivery of tomatoes and the easiest route by the municipal dump had been blocked by the Mairie, this time I tried to get in via the camp site only to find that that route had been locked. Pascal lives just by a rather large camp of travelling folk, new age not roma, and the local powers that be have been harassing them for years. Turns out that they keep playing around with the access to basically piss people off. They have to leave a route open on orders from the fire brigade, they just don’t tell you which one.

Anyway we got there in the end. The original plan was to repair his poly tunnels, which have had a few pieces of  their plastic blown off by the wind, and to plant the vegetables. Well there was no way we could do the repairs, the wind was a full tramontana, you could barely hear yourself speak. La Tour de france is down on the Rousillon plain in the Agly valley and the wind gets channeled between the Corbieres massif and the foothills of the Pyrenees. As well as growing vegetables Pascal has a couple of hundred chickens who”s eggs he sells in the market in Perpignan, the only problem is their run is a huge dust bowl. The wind was picking up the dust and throwing it around, mainly into out eyes.

Anyway our small team set to work, while one set off to tile Pascal”s home Francis, Caroline and I unloaded the plants and started work in the polytunnels. Francis and I planted while Caro ran around keepingus supplied with plants. Pascal, who unfortunately had a stroke earlier this year, supervised. A few hour later three hudred toms had been planted and watered in. Strictly speaking we were a moth late, but it has been one of those years, a soft January followed by a cold and wet February, March and April.

As is usual for these days of solidarity work the owner provides lunch for the team. Well there was no way we could eat as Pascal’s, the wind was just too strong, so Francis proposed we go to his place and eat there. So off we set, back to Estagel and then off on a minute road into the hills between Estagel and Millas. Pulling off the road and up a track we came upon Francis”s weekend hide away, a shaded terrace and a cabin in a forested valley. The whole thing had a Heath Robinson feel about it, the terrace was made out of scaffolding, there was a little plunge pool, a tree house, and everywhere was sculptures, some in iron, some chisseled out of stone, others in wood. Absolutely beautiful. And no wind, not a drop.

The grill was lit and the chicken wings thrown on, cold rose wine served in fruit juice bottles, while we sata roud and prepared the courgettes, tomatoes and peppers. Francis disappeared off to his vegetable parch to return with lettuce and fresh mint and a sald for starters prepared.

It felt like a return to old Catalonia, the fact that we were eating lunch at three in the afternoon, true Catalan style added to the flashback. Salad follwed by grilled vegetables and chicken, and then lomo, thin slices of pork.

Turns out that Francis’s cabin was George’s first bergerie, George is an Estagel based goat herder who makes cheese. Francis works with George  and makes tome cheese out of the goats milk. So there was a great seletion of fresh and mature goats cheese. Desert was flat apricots and some of Caroline”s glutten free fruit cake that was not sold on Saturday. Both were a hit. We drank our cofee but made our excuses when the whisky came out. It was now hald past five and time to return to Montrouch and start watering.

On the way home I recieved an SMS from Primagas, our gas suppliers, saying that a delivery was due on Wednesday.

Well that sorted out Tuesday for me. Our track that leads up to Montrouc is an a lamantable shape, huge water channels and rocks make it all but impassable for anything but a 4X4. It is better than the most advanced security system, you can’t rob a place that you can’t get too.

Fine for us in our Landy but not so good for a huge gas truck. While Caroline up potted hundreds of basil, Greeks, Marsallias and Genovese I spent seven hours on the mini digger filling up the holes. For us the road is now like an autoroute, whether the gas delivery driver agrees remains to be seen. Afterwards we sorted out the herbs and I went down to the village to pack the van ready for the market in Lezignan Corbieres on Wednesday. Finally we did the watering. Because the temperature has risen 15 decrees this week watering is being done later and later, it was quarter to ten when we finished.

Wednesday was market day, we both set off at five thirty, Caroline followed me down to Lezignan. While I set up the stand Caroline went off to the laundry to do our washing, usually she does most of our washing by hand but large things like rugs and towels are best done in a machine. She came back and we had a coffee with the lads that have stands around me, Omar, a lovely Dutch guy who sells home made Magrehbian pastries gave Caroline a jar of his wife’s fig jam ad Jerome gave us a slice of his sheep’s cheese which we eat for breakfasts with apples. It’s a tough life doing markets.

Thursday did not go as planned. I had my annual check up with the Cardio. Originally it had been schedules for five in the afternoon, which was fine. On Thursday’s I descend to Thezan des Corbieres where I do six hours of gardening for some old friends of mine who have a Gite surrounded by a huge, beautiful garden. I start at 8.30 so that I am finished by 2.30, that is before the full heat kicks in. Unfortunately the cardio changed the hour of our meeting to nine in the morning. That meant that I had to be down in Tuchan by 9, and did not get to Thezan until gone 10, so had to work until 4.30 biy was it hot. The Cardio did appologise, to be fair to him. Turns out he wanted to get all his appointments over in the morning so he could go sailing in the afternoon. The man has a better suntan than I do, well I have what is called a bronzage agricole, from the neck upwards and the elbows downwards, I guess he does a lot of sailing.

Got back late, I had to stop off on the way home and get tigger coils and fly paper. The heat has brought out the mosquitoes and flies in unbelievable numbers. Caroline made her pizza sauce and the fruit cake for Saturday.  The gas man had not visited, turns out his lorry broke down. We did the watering then collapsed.

Paula has gone home to day to be with her family, her grandchild, little Olie, has to go into Great Ormand Street hospital for open heart surgery. Being two he recovers fast but all our thoughts and best wishes are with them all.

Friday was like every Friday. Caroline was up at the crack of dan making her gluten free pizza base. She lets it rest for an hour the the production line gets going. It usually takes her around three to four hours to produce the 8 or so pizzas.I don’t know how she manages it but she gets covered from head to toe in flour.

While she was doing that I finally sorted out the garden, getting those plants that support the sun into the hottest places and the more fragile ones into the shade. Throwing out the unsellable plants, planting a few courgettes and cucumbers for us and sorting out the boxes for the markets on Saturday. With this heat it is time to empty the poly tunnel. 35 decrees afternoons means 45 plus under plastic, too hot for plants in pots. It is a big job but on the other hand it means everything is in the garden making watering easier.

Lynn called to say John had been readmitted to hospital with pains in his chest, they think that one of his stents did not take as it should, so hopefully a small intervention should fix that.

After we had packed both vehicles and finished the watering it was gone ten by the time we finished. Off to bed.

Saturday is market day. Quarter to five start, grunting at each other while we get ready, coffee forced down the throat in a vain attempt to get the brain working.

Caroline does the organic market in Narbonne, which is our best weekly market, while I do Place de la Republique in Perpignan. Saturday is a long day but we both have lots of friends in our markets, in fact the markets play a great part in our social life, giving us the opportunity to catch up on the latest news and gossip as well as seeing folks we have not the time to see during the week.

As usual I stopped off at the petrol station in Estagel to pick up Pascal’s egges which we sell off our stand. The idiot had tried to re hang the plastic on his poly tunnels himself, fallen over and cut his finger open, six stitches later he came to the realisation that maybe it was a bit too much for him.

Caroline has a new neighbor in Narbonne. The Melting Pot, a restaurant behind her stand which has stood empty for a couple of years has been taken over by a Brit, James and his team. It has been re branded as La Fringale and now serves a variety of English and French cooking. It is a great new addition to the market allowing people to come and eat breakfast at the beginning of the market and lunch at the end as well as serving drinks so people can sit and watch the world go by. Which after all is one of the pleasures of going to a market. Markets are as much a spectacle, and a social event as a commercial one. Not only that but James has a supplier of proper English bacon, bacon is one of the few things I miss about the UK, so to have found a supplier is heaven indeed.

With the holidays starting soon the revenue we earn in the markets have dropped off a little but Saturday’s are still good little earners. We had already sold plants directly to friends of Pascal and in the village so together with Wednesday ad Thursdays revenue over all not a bad week.

On top of that Elizabeth had slipped in a bag of fish and chips from James in Caroline’s bag, Laure had given Caroline two bags of her organic roast chicken, and the organic bakers gave her a load of their biscuits. Starvation is not on the agenda this week.