The winter solstice, September 23rd, is when the tomatoes get sick. They refuse to ripen wholly and get rot, perhaps due to the wild variation of temperature during the day. The morning is cold enough to need an electric fan heater and a cardigan; at mid-day the...
Every self-respecting country-woman has a little black book with the contact details of ‘useful-little-men-who-do-‘things’. These people are not found in the yellow pages. They are former salesmen from failed D.I.Y. stores, desperate...
This summer, the black Muscat grapes hanging over the terrace have been very successful. The bunches are big and most of the individual grapes have ripened. There seems to be no single reason why they should be better this summer than in any previous, no reason to...
People who live in the country should not go on holiday at the end of summer, especially not after such an erratic summer as we have just had in South-West France. All July and August the tomatoes have sulked, hanging greenly on their vines, grudgingly offering the... 