Les Landes – derrickjknight

Controlled Burning 2

I carried out a little picture culling this morning.

These images from Les Landes in August 2008 were featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2012/06/04/the-gite-from-hell/

This picture from May 2009 is the header for https://derrickjknight.com/2012/06/21/raincoat-or-umbrella/

These are from John and Stephanie’s wedding: https://derrickjknight.com/2013/10/06/a-wedding/

This afternoon we took a forest drive.

Controlled burning of gorse was underway along Forest Road.

“The Forestry Commission undertakes this activity now, which aims to regenerate the heather and gorse whilst hindering invading scrub, by setting fire to the heathland. Using fire to improve the heathland may sound counter-intuitive but the burning actually encourages new growth, which is beneficial to a variety of flora and fauna, as well as providing food for the commonable livestock. It also plays an important role in reducing the risk of wildfires in the summer months that can burn out of control and have a devastating effect on vegetation and wildlife. Heathland wildfires are particularly dangerous because they can burn below ground causing long-lasting damage to the peat and the mineral soil underneath.

“Practice of controlled burning
The law permits controlled burning each year from the first working day in November until the last working day of March. However, in practice it generally starts in early February because the worst of the winter weather is over, there are no birds nesting or animals producing young, the vegetation is still quite dry and the damp ground offers protection to the peaty soil. The process is strictly controlled and only a small percentage of the heathland is burned each year (on average 400 hectares) and only then in rotation, which traditionally is once every generation (about 25 years). A firebreak is first established around the area to be burned, which is made by using a cutting machine. Visitors to the Forest often have mistaken these safety margins in the heath for tracks or footpaths. The firebreaks are used to prevent the spread of flames to other parts of the heathland. Only skilled and experienced staff are permitted to undertake controlled burning of the heathland. In times past however, the commoners often operated their own unofficial controlled burning effort because they felt that the Forestry Commission programme was ineffective or did not cover the areas of heathland they wanted rejuvenated for their animals. Happily today the programme is better coordinated and many of the Forest organisations, including the Verderers, are consulted prior to any burning programme to ensure their cooperation.

“Benefits of controlled burning
But not everyone is in favour of the controlled burning and some argue that it actually has a detrimental effect on the heathland by reducing the nutrients in the soil. Nevertheless it is a practice that is still widely used, particularly on grouse moors in northern England, to encourage new growth. It also has one additional benefit that no other type of heathland management, including cutting or swiping, can provide and that is the reduction of ticks and the risk of Lymes Disease. A traditional benefit of controlled burning, but one not practised today, was the harvesting by the commoners of the ‘blackjacks’, the burnt holly and gorse stems, to sell as firewood. What you might see today however, during the periods of controlled burning, are ponies sporting blackened criss-cross markings over their flanks and hindquarters. This is a sure sign that they have been picking their way through the blackjacks and have become striped by the charcoal stalks of the holly and gorse stems as they pass by them. These haphazard markings can give them the appearance of very odd-looking zebras.” (newforestcommoner.co.uk)

Ponies cropped the verges outside Burley.

While I unsuccessfully struggled to photograph a herd of deer in a field off Crow Lane with the low sun blinding me, a string of stags took off, crossed the side road, and leapt the fence beside us. I still couldn’t see much because my eyes remained dazzled, but I managed these two shots.

Around North Gorley we enjoyed some autumn colour, a horse drawn cart and a solitary Gloucester Old Spot sow, sensibly sticking to the

verge as, much to the amusement of oncoming car passengers, donkeys dominated the road.

This evening we dined on chicken Kiev, Southern fried chicken, and Jackie’s savoury rice with which I drank Reserva Privada Chilean Merlot 2022.

A Knight’s Tale (141: Why I Bought No. 6, Rue Saint Jacques)

Just before I spent the week in Eymet with Maggie and Mike in September 2008, culminating in agreeing to buy their house in Sigoules, I enjoyed various locations with Mike and Heidi, Emily, Oliver, and Alice. One of these was at

Onesse in Les Landes. Oliver doesn’t seem to be in this family shot.

I am not sure where this beach was, but I remember picnicking on the bank in the foreground.

We took a number of walks in the sun-dappled forest with its tall pines, red-brown streams, and sandy banks of bright purple heather.

The farmhouse and its field; the nodding sunflowers; and the village perching above it are all outside Eymet, while the colourful garden and the church spire behind the rooftops are probably inside it. Without notes I am a little hazy after fourteen years.

I really regret not being sure where this wonderfully sensitive sculpture of an unknown soldier adorns a war memorial. Maybe someone will enlighten me. P.S.:

pedmar10

1 hr. ago paris1972.wordpress.com

“Sir let me intervine on the beautiful picture it is at Hagetmau by the Church Sainte Marie Madeleine in the Landes department 40 region of Nouvelle Aquitaine. Hope it helps Cheers.” This came to me on Armistice Day 2023.

Our accommodation in Les Landes is forever afterwards known as the gite from Hell. When the barbecue turned out to be a toasted sandwich maker and resin oozed out of the garden table onto my trousers we began vaguely to wonder whether all was as it should be. Michael and Heidi were expected to share a single duvet. Heidi said they would just have to snuggle up. It was when Michael went for a bath that serious alarm bells rang. If these bells had been wired up to the domestic electricity supply, and needed activating after we had switched on more than a couple of appliances, they would have fused the system. But that came later. Back to the bath. Michael, a builder, could see that a hole, near the plug hole, eaten away by rust had been plugged with some very soft substance, which he recognised, but the name of which currently escapes me. When confronted with this the female proprietor denied that it existed. When pressed, however, she allowed us to use a shower in an annex to her own house, saying that the plumber would come on Monday.

It being August, surprise, surprise, the plumber was on holiday. Her husband, however, was a retired builder. He was unable to work because only one quarter of his heart was working. This after major surgery. I checked this statement most thoroughly, fearing the truth may have been lost in translation. Veracity was absent, but certainly not subject to any problem with the language. Quite apart from the unlikelihood of the story, we knew that the gentleman concerned was building a house further up the hill. However, out of the goodness of what was left of his heart he undertook to replace the bath.

After three more days we had a new bath. It fell upon Heidi to sample this new fitting. Having completed her ablutions she came into the living room with the circular plug adjuster in her hand. When attempting to turn it to let the water out it had come apart in her hands. A bath we couldn’t fill had been replaced by one we couldn’t empty.

The next day it was the electric iron that fell apart in Heidi’s hands, and a while later the whole electrical system fused. Michael investigated the fuse box and established that there was insufficient supply to cater for the various appliances in the house. The proprietor said that we should not have more than two appliances on at any one time because the utility company did not supply enough juice.

When it came to depart Michael demanded his deposit back from the female owner and her daughter, who, as to be expected, refused to return it. I gathered the rest of the family into the car, hoping that the resultant multilingual slanging match might subside without an audience. This was not to be. Moreover the husband with the allegedly dicky heart and his son-in-law surrounded my son with threatening gestures. “Oh, dear,” I thought. “I’m going to have to get involved.”

I disembarked and squared up to the father; Michael confronted the son-in-law. Now the numbers were even the battle ceased and off we went.

The rest of the week was spent in a three star hotel at the expense of Brittany Ferries, who also refunded the rental of the establishment and gave Michael a £200 voucher for a further trip. This, however, put my Francophile son off arranging such a holiday again; my friends in Sigoules were struggling with a bridging loan; I had the cash and couldn’t afford to buy in London; so I bought No. 6, rue Saint Jacques.

Completion could not have come at a worse time than December of that year.

An Unknown Soldier

Onesse in Les Landes. Oliver doesn’t seem to be in this family shot from the selection I scanned today from the recently recovered colour slides.

I am not sure where this beach was, but I remember picnicking on the bank in the foreground.

We took a number of walks in the sun-dappled forest with its tall pines, red-brown streams, and sandy banks of bright purple heather.

I really regret not being sure where this wonderfully sensitive sculpture of an unknown soldier adorns a war memorial. Maybe someone will enlighten me.

Having read another four chapters of ‘Little Dorrit’ I now present four more of Charles Keeping’s skilful illustrations.

Here we have a ruined uncle well portrayed by the artist;

‘My eldest daughter and my son Mr Clennham.’ The essences of one weak and one haughty captured by the artist’s pen;

‘Oh, Maggy, What a clumsy child you are!’ Drawn to perfection is Dickens’s portrait of this simple soul, including her clothing’s ‘general resemblance to seaweed’;

‘He seemed to have been sitting for his portrait all the days of his life’. Keeping has caught Dickens’s vivid description of the aptly named Tite Barnacle, down to his very clothing.

This evening we dined on a second sitting of Hordle Chinese Take Away’s excellent fare, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Recital.

The Gite from Hell

Inevitably, with a six month old in the group, conversation at breakfast focussed on stages of development, in particular what can be expected at each milestone. Here we had a little boy obviously very alert and taking everything in with a very intelligent expression. When could he be expected to talk, to walk, etc., etc? This gave Jackie the opportunity to recount Becky’s first words. Becky had not said a word until, at 11 months, she had walked up to her astounded mother, stretched up her arms and said: ‘Pick me up please, Mummy’. It was the formation of the sentence that had amazed Jackie, not the walking; that had first been demonstrated 2 months earlier, when this child, who had never crawled or furniture walked, got to her feet in the middle of the room, and walked across it. This achievement took place before the very eyes of Jackie’s fiercest maternal rival. Yeesss!!

I spent the morning and part of the afternoon digging, weeding, and pruning more of the shrubbery bed. Chris and Frances arrived just before their grandson took his parents home, and Chris collected the boy’s great grandmother later on.

Over lunch Elizabeth spoke of a postcard she had received based on the pun of a leek in the bath. Now, I cannot think of a leak in the bath without going back to the gite from hell. Indirectly the gite from hell is the reason why I bought my house in Sigoules in the Dordogne from my friends Maggie and Michael Kindred. I will, incidentally, be going there for 8 days in two days time and therefore be unable to continue regular daily postings. I will keep notes and when possible use friends’ internet facilities.

In the summer of 2008 I had stayed at a gite in Les Landes with Michael, Heidi, Emily, Oliver, and Alice. When the barbecue turned out to be a toasted sandwich maker and resin oozed out of the garden table onto my trousers we began vaguely to wonder whether all was as it should be. Michael and Heidi were expected to share a single duvet. Heidi said they would just have to snuggle up. It was when Michael went for a bath that serious alarm bells rang. If these bells had been wired up to the domestic electricity supply, and needed activating after we had switched on more than a couple of appliances, they would have fused the system. But that came later. Back to the bath. Michael, a builder, could see that a hole, near the plug hole, eaten away by rust had been plugged with some very soft substance, which he recognised, but the name of which currently escapes me. When confronted with this the female proprietor denied that it existed. When pressed, however, she allowed us to use a shower in an annex to her own house, saying that the plumber would come on Monday.

This is a significantly abbreviated version of a four page ghost story I wrote for the children based on the experience.

Elizabeth provided the evening meal of shepherd’s pie. Hoegarten blanche, red and white wine, and orange juice were variously imbibed