At the end of October when we were having the big storms,  the fishermen, apparently, were saying that when the storms had gone through the weather would be fine until Christmas. They were right! The sun came out again about the second week of November and has been with us ever since. This means no rain and now it is very much needed and none is forecast into the first 10 days of January.

 So it was a sunny Christmas and we cooked a 4 kilo turkey in the bread oven.

  Preparing

 

 Cooking

 

Carving

 

 Eating

 For future reference, the turkey was cooked in 4 hours 20 minutes then it was taken out to rest and parboiled potatoes, parsnips, sweet potato and celeriac were put in the oven to roast. They were done in 25 mins and that was our dinner together with carrots and leeks.

 We have some English friends here who, for a monthly sum, look after the swimming pool and keep an eye on the place when we are not here. They are on an English pension the value of which has been eroded by the euro dropping from 1.70 to the pound to almost parity now. With us being here they were losing out on the income from us until we had a bright idea. They grow an enormous amount of fruit and vegetables, mostly much more then they can eat themselves.  So now every Tuesday we collect a vegibox from them for a weekly sum.

Outside Michael has been enlarging the vegetable plot and has been busy on the garden outside the back door: Ann has been terracing the lower slope leading away from the house at the front. The soil there looks like this

 

 Not very promising - it is stony and heavy clay - but by covering it with membrane and a good depth of topsoil, which we have delivered,  it is possible to plant through the membrane and this gives the plants shade and retains moisture. Everything seems to grow very well.

 

Terracing in progress

 

The upper slope - terraced and planted 2009 - photo taken 29 Dec 2011

 

 Same place but looking the other way taken same day.

 We bought the red van in the background for 350 euros from a Welshman who had driven it out here some years ago with all his possessions and his dog. It is not taxed or insured but we move it about from time to time to give the idea that someone is here when there isn't - so it's a decoy.  We have put a small solar panel on the dashboard which keeps the battery topped up.