Visitors come, visitors go

Steve (Andy's dad) and Jackie left yesterday morning after spending 4 days here at Pissou. It was lovely to have visitors again and Andy really enjoyed coming up with culinary delights which certainly succeeded in tickling the tastebuds! I think the favourite dish (at least as far as Jackie was concerned!) was the wickedly rich chocolate pud, which was simply divine, but they also enjoyed a yummy rabbit in cider recipe and a special pigeon dish on their last evening. Mmm! I also introduced them to another local aperitif called Hypocras which is very much an acquired taste but which Jackie took to very quickly! It actually goes very well with lamb apparently so watch the recipe blog for some interesting new recipes!

The weather held out for their stay so we took the opportunity to introduce them to one of the very important tasks for us, which is the recovery of wood for the wood burner. A small fruit tree had fallen onto a power/telephone line just above the house and although it is not on our land, we decided that we should do the right thing and remove it so that the line is not pulled down when the first snows arrive. So Andy and Steve donned chainsaw gear and set to.

The tree yielded a good supply of both large and small sections of wood which have certainly bolstered our supply for the winter. Claudine is back next weekend so we will take that opportunity to clarify what other wood we can recover from the surrounding area.

Whilst it was still fine, we drove up to the Col d'Agnes, 20 minutes from the house, from where you have amazing views of the mountains which border Spain. The clouds were accumulating rapidly on the high tops, but it was still spectacular and I think Steve and Jackie were suitably impressed!
Whilst they were at Pissou, it became apparent that we did indeed have mice in the house. This was confirmed without doubt when Steve was using the little boy's room and a cheeky mouse appeared from under the door! What can you say! Andy also spotted one scuttling across the living room floor one evening so we decided we had to take action. I bought four traps from the shop in Massat and Andy melted some chocolate onto two of them and wedged a lump of cheese onto the other two. 24 hours later, the trap in the bathroom presented its first victim to us and then yesterday, we caught another one in the living room. I had been talking to Gil, the boulangerie about the meeces and he happened to mention that he has a snake who is quite partial to the odd rodent. So I duly presented yesterday's victim to him in a plastic bag, for which he said the 'serpent' would be most grateful! We have talked about getting some kittens which would turn into evil mouse-killing machines in due course but I think we have decided that they would be too much work in the short term. So that idea is temporarily on hold.

I bought a tray of greengages (prunes Reine-Claude) from St Girons market on Saturday with the intention of making some plum jam. Jackie ploughed in with stoning the fruit (9kgs of it!) and I used 2.5 kgs to produce some very tasty greengage and almond jam. The rest of the fruit, we bagged and froze for use in cooking during the winter. I also made some apple chutney on Wednesday which we have to leave for 2-3 months before we can eat it - darn! But the wait should be worth it. Today, we will hopefully be making the sloe gin from the sloes that we collected last week. Next, we hope to gather some big juicy chestnuts from the woodland below us - I love this time of year!

The weather appears to have deteriorated somewhat, with heavy rain and very low cloud. The forward forecast is looking decidedly dismal, so time to get on with the indoor jobs, I reckon.