Mulch

With the branches from the first hedgelaying chipped, there's been plenty to mulch the gardens. Now all we need is rain. We've had two days with rain in about three and a half months! They say rain will start on Wednesday, but it's always rain tomorrow.

Tomorrow I m heading off with Ben to do a two hike picking up Pic de Certescan, then dropping into Spain to stay in a refuge.

Autumn jobs

It certainly doesn't feel like autumn, but there are jobs that need doing on the turning of the seasons.

The pressing mammoth task this year is hedge laying, which has to be done every 4-5 years. Some of the hedges are already done and I've just finished the one between the house and the gite, which we can see for the first time in years. The hedges on the left which border the chemin are next. They're currently about 4-5m high and all the the thinnings of which there are mountains have to go through the chipper on the back of the tractor...I'm waiting for cooler weather to attack those.

The hedges either side of he chemin form a tunnel at present and need to laid before the winter

The autumn crocii are out in the fields and that's the signal to bring the firewood that been drying for two years (already cut, split and stacked) up into the woodshed for the winter. 

It's a strangely comforting feeling to have the woodshed full with the wood for the coming winter. Last year there was plenty of old oak beams, flooring and roof timbers to burn from the barn conversion. This year 80% of it it oak from a single tree that fell in a storm. The rest is birch and poplar which we'll burn first, saving the high calorific oak for colder weather mid winter - though it's been a while since we've had a really cold winter.

There's still a couple of stère of oak left as reserve.

 

Jasper and Chloe

Time flies! Already it's Jasper's 30th birthday. He visited for a few days with his girlfriend Chloe. We took them on the Cabanatous circuit as it's only 30 minutes from the house and a nice length for the exceptionally hot weather that we've had this summer.

We saw some ptarmigan on the ridge, still in their summer plumage, and from the summit a female hen harrier with her characteristic white rump, flying low and fast over the hillside.

 

Birdies

Some very high flying bee-eaters through the telephoto lens

A male pied flycatcher in front of the house

 

Breakdown disaster!

Our recent guests Miriam and Santiago were due to return home to Valencia on Saturday, but late Friday evening their car broke down in Saint Girons. They called their insurers in Spain who would normally arrange for the car to be picked up by a local garage and repaired and pay for necessary expenses of Miriam and Santiago (accommodation etc). They let me know what had happened, but I'd just shared some wine with Susie so I couldn't offer to collect them.

Things don't always run smoothly and after many calls and promises that the recovery truck was coming they eventually came back to the gite at 2.30 in the morning in a taxi! The next day after more calls to the insurance company they were told that the recovery vehicle would be collecting their car immediately and they must get to St Girons asap with the keys. It was 10am. We jumped in my car and the recovery lorry was already waiting when we got there 30 mins later. He took the car to the local peugeot garage but explained that they could not repair the car as it was a honda, so we would need to find another garage to carry out the repair on Monday and arrange with the insurers for the car to be moved again. The peugeot garage were open for just another 30 mins but they allowed me to look under the bonnet and try to find out what was wrong until they closed. I searched everywhere for the OBD2 socket without luck (I later discovered this particular 1996 model of Honda Civic did not have one). The engine was turning there was a spark but there was no ignition, so the likely culprit was a fuel problem. The fuse for the fuel pump was OK, so either the fuel pump was dead or the relay was dead or there was a blockage/air lock or another electrical problem. 

At noon a taxi turned up at the house to take Santiago and Miriam to meet the tow truck....ordered by the insurers from a town over an hour's drive away it had arrived 2 hours too late, without any message it was coming.

On Monday we found a nearby garage (1 km from peugeot) that sold and repaired secondhand cars of all marks and they agreed to take the car and look at it. The car didn't arrive there until 4.30pm. On Tuesday after several calls to the garage they eventually looked at the car at 5.00pm, confirmed that there was a fuel problem, but said it was very difficult to say much else as the car was 30 years old, they had no electrical diagrams for the car and didn't know when or if they could fix it.

Miriam and Santiago both of whom were teachers and should have started back at work on Monday were getting pretty desperate. The insurance would only cover three night accommodation at 60 euros a night and it was difficult to get a straight answer as to whether the insurers would pay to get them and/or their car home. They decided they had no alternative but to try to get home and then possibly come back to collect their car, fixed or not, in a few weeks time.

I decided to take control!! I did some more research on their vehicle and armed with some tools we headed over to the garage on Wednesday morning. On turning the key the fuel pump wasn't turning, so I found the fuel pump relay removed it and connected the battery directly to the fuel pump. It ran. The relay was probably bad. With the pump connected to the battery the car would still not start, but with 7 terminals on the relay I guessed it also operated the fuel injectors, ECU, etc. I gave the garage the relay and asked how quickly they could get a replacement part. 20 minutes later his supplier returned his call and sais it was unavailable.

"Never give up" is my motto. We headed home, relay in hand, and I started searching on line for the part. There were many different fuel pumps for this year and model depending on the type of engine. This particular car had an early 1.5iVTEC engine and the relay had been discontinued the same year. However, several secondhand parts came up on ebay and even a new part from the Netherlands which would take 7 days to arrive. Santiago and Miriam decided they could not wait any longer (plus we had new guests arriving in the gite the following day) so they had to get home straight away. We agreed to take them to Saint Girons where they could eventually get transport to Toulouse and from there a train home to Valencia or at least Barcelona that night. Meanwhile I took the relay apart and inspected the circuit board inside. There were a couple of terminals on the back of the board that had hairline cracks around the solder. I got out my soldering iron and reheated them adding a little extra solder to each connection...could this fix the fault?

We had 20 minutes before their bus would leave so we headed straight to the garage and I put in the repaired relay....turned the key....hey presto it started first time!!

Port de Lers, Trois Seigneurs, Goutets, Col de Rose boucle

A long walk in the searing heat with Al and Breezy which became quite debilitating as we ran out of water after Goutets! We ve climbed Pic de Trois Seigneurs from the Port de Lers and from Goutets many times but the path from Goutets over the Col de Rose and back to the Port de Lers was new to us. At first glance it looks like it contours the mountain, but on the ground there is lot of up and down and after the Col de Rose the track is lost among a thousand cattle tracks. There are many ways to loop over the summit of Trois Seigneurs but this would not be one to do again.

At Goutets they are rebuilding many of the ancient estive buildings in the traditional way with stone roofs.

In the end the day took about 7 hours excluding lunch breaks. 1200m height gain and around 16km.