With clear, sunny days and temperatures in the mid 20s, it hardly feels like Christmas. It’s only rained once this month, in fact I think it’s only rained once since Nick had his accident on November 1st and the garden’s so dry that I’ve even had to water it!

The citrus trees are tucked up, cosy and warm, in their greenhouse, the scent is fantastic in there, and several limes had fallen, so we picked anything else that looked and felt ripe – 2kg of limes and lemons. Not having anything else to do (well, I can dream), we decided to turn them into marmalade: yesterday evening was spent squeezing and chopping and today we cooked it. It took both our big pans, the arrière cuisine smelt wonderful and we ended up with 15 jars. It doesn’t look like the bought variety, as our limes were mostly quite yellow in colour, so it hasn’t got that lovely greenish tinge, but it tastes wonderful.

On that happy note, I’ll take this opportunity to wish anybody and everybody who’s reading this a very happy Christmas and much happiness in 2016.

Avec des jours clairs et ensoleillés et des températures  de 20-24ºC, il se sent à peine comme Noël. Il n’a pas plu depuis longtemps, en fait, je pense qu’il  n’a qu’une fois depuis Nick a eu son accident le 1er Novembre et le jardin est tellement sec que je dois l’arroser!

Les arbres d’agrumes sont retroussé et chaud, dans leur petite serre, le parfum est fantastique là-dedans, et plusieurs citrons verts étaient tombés, donc nous avons recolté quelques autres qui avait l’air et sentait mûr – 2kg de limes et des citrons. N’ayant rien autre à faire (enfin, je peux rêver), nous avons décidé de les transformer en marmelade: hier soir a été dépensé hacher et presser et aujourd’hui nous l’avons cuisiné. Il a fallu nos deux grandes casseroles, l’arrière cuisine sentait merveilleux et nous sommes retrouvés avec 15 pots. Il ne ressemble pas à la variété acheté, comme nos citrons verts étaient pour la plupart de couleur jaune, de sorte qu’il n’a pas la belle teinte verdâtre, mais il a un goût merveilleux.

Sur cette note heureuse, je vais profiter de cette occasion pour souhaiter à tout le monde qui lit mon blog un très joyeux Noël et beaucoup de bonheur en 2016.

I don’t understand how someone as active as Nick normally is can remain as positive and cheerful as he has, when his movement is as restricted as it’s been for the last 6 weeks. But somehow he’s managed it and recently we had reason to celebrate when he managed the stairs for the first time since November 1st.

I don’t do anything like the same amount of exercise as Nick, but if I’m deprived of it, I soon start to feel very low; 2 weeks and I’m climbing the walls, 3 weeks and I just want to curl up and die. So after nearly 6 weeks of nothing more than a quick walk to the supermarket while Nick’s at the physio, things were getting desperate; I really needed a bike ride.

Nick has recently bought me a new bike; a road bike, but with clearances for slightly knobbly tyres. I’ll take it when we go off in the camper, it should be ideal for trips around town or along cycle tracks, being less highly strung than my others. Obviously it needed trying out; Nick fitted the saddle we’d bought the previous day and canibalised another bike for pedals; the right pedal went in fine, but the left one was a struggle, being extremely tight. At last it was 95% in; that would do, commented Nick; at least I wouldn’t lose a pedal.

The bike was great, comfortable and responsive, and it was a glorious day, so I ended up riding a bit further than I’d planned; after 15km, and heading for home, I felt so good, giving it my all up a hill, one, two, one, two, when suddenly, one…… nothing; no push, in fact, nothing at all! My right foot was floating about in the air – the “good” pedal had come off! I stopped; the pedal was still attached to my shoe and wanted to stay there. I couldn’t walk home in that shoe without damaging the pedal, but didn’t much fancy the walk in just my sock either. Much wrenching and pulling ensued and eventually the pedal separated from the shoe, so I set off to walk the remaining 7km. I let Nick know I’d be a bit late home; I didn’t really mind; it was as lovely a day for a walk as for a ride, after all, with clear views of the Pyrenees, resplendant under the first snow of the winter. But about 3km from home a car pulled up; some friends had called in, heard of my plight and had come to rescue me.

Je ne comprends pas comment quelqu’un aussi actif que Nick peut rester positif et optimiste, quand son mouvement est aussi limité que ça a été pour les six dernières semaines. Mais de toute façon il le fait et récemment, nous avons eu raison de célébrer quand il est monté les escaliers pour la première fois depuis le 1er Novembre.

Je ne fais pas du tout la même quantité d’exercice que Nick, mais si je suis privé de tout cela, je commence vite à me sentir très basse; 2 semaines et je deviens melancholique, trois semaines et je veux mourir.  Donc après six semaines de rien de plus que quelques minutes à pied au supermarché tandis Nick à la physio, les choses devenaient désespérée; j’avais vraiment besoin d’une rando au vélo.

 Nick m’a acheté récemment un nouveau vélo; un vélo de route, mais avec des espaces pour les pneus légèrement noueux. Je vais le prendre quand nous partons dans le camping-car, il devrait être idéal pour des excursions autour de la ville ou le long des pistes cyclables, étant moins nerveux que mes autres. Évidemment, il fallait l’essayer; Nick a posé la selle que nous avions acheté la veille et il a cannibalisé un autre vélo pour des pédales; la pedale droite etait facile à faire, mais le gauche était  extrêmement serré. Enfin, il était de 95% en; ça serait bien, a commenté Nick; au moins, je ne perdrais pas une pédale.

Le vélo était superbe, confortable et réactive, et ce fut une belle journée, donc je suis allée un peu plus loin que je l’avais prévu; après 15 km, et se dirigeant vers la maison, je me sentais tellement bien, je poussais le plus dure que je pouvais, un, deux, un, deux, quand tout à coup, l’un …… rien; rien comme puissance, en fait, rien du tout! Mon pied droit  flottait dans l’air – la “bonne” pédale s’etait détachée! Je me suis arrêté; la pédale était encore attaché à ma chaussure et voulait y rester. Je ne pouvais pas rentrer à pied en cette chaussure sans endommager la pédale, mais n’avais pas beaucoup d’envie de marcher en seulement ma chaussette.  J’ai tiré bien la pédale, et finalement je l’ai séparé de la chaussure, donc je pouvais marcher les derniers 7 km. J’ai expliqué à Nick que je serais chez nous un peu en retard; ça ne me dérangeait pas vraiment; il était une aussi belle journée pour une promenade que pour un rando au vélo, après tout, avec une vue dégagée sur les Pyrénées, resplendissante sous la première neige de l’hiver. À environ 3km de la maison, une voiture tiré s’est arretée;  quelques amis etaient venus nous voir, Nick les avait parler de ma situation et ils étaient venus me sauver.

Once upon a time, on the edge of a vineyard in deepest South West France, there lived a middle aged couple. The man had had an accident and was unable to do much for a while, so his wife did her best to tackle the jobs normally done by her husband, as well as those neither of them would normally need to do. She’d perfected the art of dragging the wheelchair in and out of the car and had become fairly proficient at lighting fires, drilling beams and using the electric chainsaw to cut wood, though being unacustomed to such heavy work, she had aches and pains where she hadn’t previously realised she had muscles.

One day, she even found time to prune the blackcurrant bushes, once she’d managed to find them, that is; the weed fairies had visited and the blackcurrant bushes were completely overgrown with grass and weeds, which really needed strimming. Her kindly husband had generously bought her a strimmer of her own a couple of years before; she’d never quite got the hang of starting it, but felt that it couldn’t really be that difficult – could it?

Our brave (OK, stubborn, determined) heroine filled it with fuel, primed the pump, turned the choke on and pulled the cord as hard as she was able; but the bad strimmer fairies had bewitched it and nothing happened. She tried again, and again, and again……… until she felt her arm and shoulder would fall off. So that’s how hard it could be then. When she had no pull left, she gave up in disgust. Why couldn’t they make strimmers (or chainsaws, or hedge trimmers, or any of those other boy-toys for that matter), easy, or even possible to start? Would she really have to resort to cutting the grass with shears?

The following day, a knight in shining armour came riding by, in the shape of Lord Kieran of Dax; he split logs for the fire and stacked them on the terrace, frightened off the bad fairies and showed the woman how to start the strimmer. Then he turned it off and made her do it herself; well, he tried. Once he’d started it several times and it was warmed up, she was able to start it, but that probably won’t help when it’s cold and Lord Kieran’s not around; still, she was able to cut the grass around the blackcurrants, so perhaps they can live happily ever after, for a while at least.

When not performing my duties as housekeeper, sole cook and bottle washer, nurse, physiotherapist, chauffeur, handyperson, hair washer, back scrubber, heaver of wheelchair in and out of car/house and general gofer, I occasionally find time to get out into the garden.

Last week, I had a look at the cabbages I planted a while ago; now, I’m no expert when it comes to gardening, but I do know that cabbage leaves should not look like overwashed, green lace. A closer inspection revealed caterpillars; not just the odd one or two, but hundreds of the striped, hairy things, in all sizes from armies of tiny, thread-like ones, eager to spread out and start chewing at top speed, to fully grown adults, chomping away at my cabbages. Very little remained of some of them, the pests having had their fill already.

I looked up how to deal with them and the only organic means is to pick them off and squash them. UGH!!! I tried, really I did, but even wearing rubber gloves, which made picking them up possible, no way could I bring myself to sqeeze them till they popped. So I left them for a couple of days, during which I’m sure their numbers doubled; till I was watching the nurse changing Nick’s dressing one morning. Each kit used contains two pairs of disposable plastic tweezers, so when she’d gone, I retrieved the tweezers and headed out to the potager; they were perfect, even allowing me to access those caterpillars in hard to reach spots. A quick squish and the beasties are dead – perfect! I now have quite a collection of tweezers, that I’ve put to good use for several days and today I only found 12 caterpillars, so I hope the cabbages might recover in time.

We went to see the surgeon yesterday; he’s happy with Nick’s progress and said that he no longer needs the “gouttière”, a sort of removeable plaster cast and can soon start to put his foot on the ground, which feels like a glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Nick feels that progress on his shoulder is very slow, but this, apparently, is normal; it’s the joint with the most articulation, so getting full movement back will be a long, slow process.
The physio has a pulley device; Nick pulls the cord on one side, which enables him to lift his bad arm. So I’ve drilled a couple of holes in the beam in the sitting room ceiling, screwed eyelets into them and threaded them with cord; Nick can do the same exercise at home now. It’s shocking to see him unable to lift his arm, but that too is normal at this stage, we gather.
Before all this happened, Nellie and I were asked to sing at a concert in January; normally we have the reassurance of the rest of the band with us, but this time will be a lot more scary. The organiser asked for a photo of us for the flyers, so Nick played the role of photographer today, on his “mobility scooter”. It was a lovely afternoon and Hervé came along with Nellie, quite peeved that I hadn’t yet asked him for help. He was disappointed to find that Kieran is keeping up with the firewood, as he’d arrived with a couple of chainsaws in his van, but I was able to keep him occupied putting in stakes and wires to support the mange tout peas that are growing nicely now, while Nellie and I dug and weeded other parts of the garden, and Nick rode around happily on the mower, delighted to be outdoors in the warm autumn sunshine.
As the sun went down we had aperos by the log fire and Hervé made me promise to call him the next time there’s a task I can’t cope with.

One such task was taken on by Adrian and his brother, Mick. For a couple of weeks I’ve been hearing scrabbling, pattering noises in the space between the kitchen ceiling and my bedroom floor; at first it sounded small, like mice, but last week we had the impression of something enormous, wearing hobnailed boots. I really thought it was a rat, though it could have got into the space, I couldn’t imagine. It was so loud that it woke me at 6 o’clock one morning! I bought sachets of poison and pushed them into any gaps I could find, but the noises continued. I mentioned it to Ade when he was over; he and his brother cut out a square of the floorboards under the bed, where it won’t show, scattered several packs of poison as far as they could and put back the boards, reassuring me that the droppings they found were only those of mice. I haven’t heard anything since, so fingers crossed that they’re gone, or dead, or both.

We really count ourselves very lucky to have such good friends.