And, being the returning officer for the under mentioned small group ofexpatriates ....

Walking Monday:     3.8km

Walking Tuesday:     3.9km

Swimming Tuesday: 1.25km

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The forthcoming British election has even come into the consciousness of the hockey team here, normally awareness of British news is limited to whichever football teams are playing on "Super Sunday", the annual England-France rugby match and the latest royal baby/marriage news. But on Sunday after the match Max asked me who was going to win. "Bit difficult to tell Max". He manfully stayed with me in my struggle with the French language to explain about UKIP ( a bit like the Front Nationale only without Marine Le Pen), why the LibDems were going to be rewarded for 5 years of coalition by losing most of their seats, how six months after losing the Scottish Referendum the SNP we're going to win lots more seats and why Labour weren't like French socialists at all. Eventually he drifted off to look at a new baby, which I kind of understand. 

British citizens moving overseas are allowed to vote in UK General Elections for 15 years after they leave the UK, if they register they can remain on the electoral roll in the last constituency they lived in.

 IF they register.

In the 2010 general election, of the estimated 2.3 million UK citizens living overseas just 23,000 were on the electoral roll. We registered last year, partly to exercise our right to vote, partly with an eye on a possible 2017 EU Membership Referendum which would have a huge effect on us living in France.

So, in a rerun of the Blackadder the third "Rotten Borough" election night parody ("it's been a good turnout, in fact the elector turned out before breakfast") we completed our postal votes last Sunday morning - we resisted setting up a curtained booth but otherwise just like a real vote. As well as the main three parties NE Hampshire has candidates from UKIP, the Greens and, first time ever, the Monster Raving Loony Party. A rich choice then.

Two votes on their way .......

An Emperor Visits

Walking Wednesday:   3.8km

Walking Thursday:       3.9km

Walking Friday:            3.8km

Swimming Friday:        1.15km

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It sounded as if a bat had crashed into the barn windows, injured itself and was thrashing around on the ground. Normally Pip wants to find out everything that is going on but he wasn't interested in investigating the noise in the dark at 11pm.

So, armed with a torch and the iPad I went out and found a huge moth, at least 75mm wingspan, trying to get into the outside light:

Consulting by email with Eric Smith, our reference for all things to do with Butterflies, Moths and Insects, he confirmed what I had found on Wikipedia and identified it as an Emperor Moth. It's a bit away from its usual habitat of heath and heather here but well within its range.

And it's the biggest moth I've ever seen in the wild.

One MOOC, Two MOOCs

Walking today: 3.8km

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My second Open University MOOC (mass open online course) starts today. I've got eight weeks on Cybersecurity to come.

Makes a difference from gardening!

A Half cut hedge and a nest of spiders

Walking Thursday: 3.9km

Walking Friday: 3.8km

Swimming Friday: 1.25km

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Our hedges need cutting at just the right time so that

a) They look tidy

b) The job's not a massive undertaking - so before the shoots have grown thick and hard

Here's a picture showing how much is taken off, exactly halfway through the process:

So, a half-cut hedge really os nothing to do with how much it's had to drink.

Cutting hedges at this time can be tricky due to the wildlife, particularly birds, using the foliage cover to make a nest. Cutting operations were stopped in two places due to suspected nesting operations.

On a smaller scale I found a tiny spider's nest where the young spiders had just hatched and were just starting to head off for new lands: 

Always makes me think of the book "Charlotte's Web" when I find one of these!

Working Hard

Walking Monday: 3.8km

Walking Tuesday: 3.9km

Swimming Tuesday: 1.00km

Walking Wednesday: 3.8km

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Surrounded by farmers as we are puts a new perspective on hard work. The cats get put out at 6.30 and the lights in Dominique and Nicole's elevage are always on at that hour, they are usually still at work at 7pm. And that's seven days a week.

As I write this it's 9pm, ploughing started in the field at the bottom of our land about 6.30: 

About half the field is done, it's going to be another late working night:

When the sun comes out

Walking Thursday: 3.9km

Cycling Thursday: 33.1km (along the towpath of the Canal de Nantes à Brest)

Walking Friday: 3.8km

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The passengers on the plane groaned as one:

"The weather in Paris is overcast, the temperature at present is five degrees"

It had been 25 degrees in Hanoi as we left, it was 25 degrees in Singapore (at midnight) as we took off.

The weather in Brittany while we had been away had been cool and rainy, the grass wasn't knee high as we had feared it would be, the Spring hadn't sprung and, although the potatoes and broad beans had just pushed through, everything else looked more winter than Spring.

Then on Easter Sunday the sun came out with a cold easterly wind, the sun stayed for a week as the air slowly warmed up. And then today it got really warm and the temperature reached 25C for the first time this year. All of "l'hexagone" has the same weather today:

So, on the day that the temperature in Noyal-Muzillac reached that in Singapore it all proved too much for one of the Basse Cour team who had to take to his summer bed in the hangar:

A New Calf

Walking today: 3.9km

Swimming today: 1.25km

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In hindsight it's strange that, being surrounded by dairy fields, we hadn't seen a calf being born before. I'm not very knowledgeable about dairy farming, Dominique once told me that his dairy cows have one calf a year - "normalement", whatever that means in this context. 

So on Sunday afternoon Barbara spotted a very new born calf in the corner of a field at the bottom of our land. The mother and another cow were in attendance but it was what happened next that was most interesting for the two spectators sitting on the house terrace.

Dominique's son Bertrand was handling milking duties and he arrived on the quad bike to bring in the cows. He drove away the two adults quite aggressively, they were reluctant to leave at first but soon obediently trotted away with the rest of the herd. Bertrand returned a few minutes later and collected the calf in their ubiquitous white farmer's van and took it back to the elevage. 

I think the theory is that the cows can't be allowed to form any relationship with their calves, in reality they seem to have short memories anyway - we once found a calf wandering around in a field an hour after the milking herd had gone in, the attraction of food must have proved a bigger draw for the mother.

Of course the reality is that only female calves are of any value, and only some of them as about 20% of the herd are replaced each year. Of course, this being frugal Brittany there are some innovative ways of using up all the various surplus products of farming, other than as an experience don't recommend you try fricassee or andouille and somehow we've never been attracted to buying a ticket for the school PTA's April event where tête de veau is served .....

Spring Blossom

Walking Tuesday: 5.4km

Walking today: 3.9km

A few pictures of Spring blossom for today's blog:

The peach is in full bloom.

And in the "crouching lion" Japanese garden the flowering cherry "Snow Showers" is making a good show in its first year.

Mekong Catchup

Walking today: 7.6km

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One of the areas we visited in Vietnam was the Mekong Delta.

The Mekong River rises in Tibet and via China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam makes its way to the sea. Along the way it picks up a lot of mud and silt, much of this has been deposited over the years in the Mekong Delta with the result that it is the agricultural powerhouse of Vietnam. In the mountainous areas we saw rice being grown in contoured paddyfields about 3m wide where all the work has to be done manually, it's a struggle to get a single crop from this land. In the Mekong Delta the fields are large, farmed mechanically and produce three rice crops a year.

Sue Perkins did and excellent series The Mekong River for the BBC last year where she traveled from the sea right to the source of the river. The scale of just the delta region is huge and in a single day trip it was only possible for us to get a brief taste of the area.

The river itself is huge and a micro landscape in its own right. There are specific types of boat that have been developed for use on the river and we passed many boatyards where these vessels are built and repaired.

There are some new bridges that have made travel across the delta region easier.

And the pace of building is intense, we passed two massive new bridges that are under construction at present.

The river is a key transport route for commerce in the delta and the pace of life all along the river mirrors that in HCMC.

The river crossings are still mainly by boat running in convoy 24 hours a day.

 

On the ferries the lorries and cars get loaded first and then the scooters flow in around them like water.

It looks like a seascape but this is the Mekong River - it's huge!

We also took a trip through some small backwaters fringed with palms and banana plants.

Changing Seasons

In a splash of slate-blue the first swallow flew over our field yesterday. It was like a reconnaissance flight as it pulled up over the barn and came back across the pond for a second look and then disappeared over the fields towards Dominique's dairy.

It has been a cool spring so far, we had expected the leaves and blossom to be out on our return but mostly the trees are still in bud. The peach, nectarine and apricot are in flower but nothing else as yet.

La Basse Cour is aligned almost exactly East-west (the south wall faces 182 degrees as far as I can work out) and so the tiny postholes we glazed in the eastern gable end face nearly exactly East. At the Spring solstice the sun rises exactly in the east and so for a few days around the spring and autumn solstices we get a magical shaft of light shining into the barn in the morning:

Like the blossom, the cuckoo and the swallow it's a sure sign that summer is on its way.

First Cuckoo and the last word

Walking Today: 3.8km

During our morning walk today we heard our first cuckoo of the year. Actually two separate birds in two copses calling to (or at) each other.

And, in case you missed the end of Radio 4's "You and Yours" today here's the tweet Peter White read out as the last item on the programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pr38c 

Catching Up

The Garmin GPS went off the rails in Saigon, thinking we had walked 247km in one day. It never recovered from this aberration and, after the transfer to Hoi An, never again managed to work out where in the world it was.

The BBC website was blocked in HCMC (a legacy of an unfavourable report of political dissidents in 2013) - I don't think GPS signals are blocked in Vietnam but you never know ....

So these figures are extracted from maps and timings.

Friday 20th (Hoi An)

Walking: 3.5km

Swimming: 0.42km

Saturday (Hué)

Walking: 1.6km

Cycling: 16.2km

Sunday (Hué)

Walking: 1.1km

Swimming: 0.04km

Monday (Hanoi)

Walking: 6.7km

Tuesday (Hanoi)

Walking: 2.4km

Wednesday (SaPa)

Walking: 6.3km

Thursday (SaPa)

Walking: 9.8km

Friday ( SaPa)

Walking: 4.7km

Saturday (Halong Bay)

Walking: 1.1km

Swimming: 0.35km

Sunday (CatBa Island)

Walking: 3.3km

Monday (Hanoi)

Walking: 2.1km

Tuesday (Hanoi)

Walking: 5.2km

View from SaPa hotel room: