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An experiment …. update

5/6/2020

Hello, we promised that we would provide an update on how things have been going with contributions to our 'futures experiment'.
Well, after a slow start the progress has been encouraging - we have had a good number of contributions, from a diversity of contributors, writing from a range of locations - including Belgium, France, the UK, Australia and the USA.

What next?
We are continuing to collect contributions until the end of June - yes please: if you have yet to contribute, or have done so but would like to add something, then just send your contribution to [email protected] - thank you!

While we collect any further contributions we will now start to run the analysis of those we have had. This involves using keyword analysis to identify the range of themes and 'signals' that exist across the range of contributions, with rare occurrences receiving the same amount of attention as more frequent occurrences. We then design ways to represent/describe the categories and themes and present these to you - probably via this Blog to start with. We may then ask some further questions, and/or present what we call 'provocations', designed to get contributors to look at other contributions and ideas and to comment. Finally, we may examine ways to ask people to prioritise across the whole collection of themes.
If all this sounds a bit 'heavy-duty', we don't believe it will be like that when you come to it - and we hope that your interest in the interim results will lead you into the further participation!

In the end, if all goes well, then we will publish the results and perhaps see if they might attract wider attention. The aim is to complete this by the end of August.

So, please stick with the process - thank you so much!

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The roses have it …..

4/6/2020

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Greetings with another, slightly delayed, Blog Post!
Well, how could we be 'delayed' when we must have so much time on our hands? It is a strange phenomena of the pandemic that it has affected so many aspects of our lives, routines, and our expectations and plans ….. and that impacts on energy levels and our sense of 'time spent'.
Anyway, we have some good excuses - amongst which is of course … 'the garden' and the reality that our weather here this Spring has been such a mix of warmth and wet that everything has been growing - which requires a careful and constant mix of attention, control and encouragement! And other activities have continued to focus on communicating with family, friends and Chambres D'Hotes guests who have become friends; and on ensuring that energy goes into keeping the house going so that when we can welcome people here again, then hopefully it will be as welcoming, comfortable and tranquil as possible.
So, for this Post we decided to focus on the garden:

It is now three and a half years since we planted a selection of 'ancient roses', whose stock date back a hundred years plus ... and they have now really 'taken off', growing 20 metres plus and intermingling with the wisterias, honeysuckles and clematis that we planted at the same time. So, instead of wittering on any further, here is just a selection of the roses at they are the moment:

This is the first 'flowering', which will last until the end of June, and then there will some light pruning to do, some 'feeding', and with a bit of luck and fortuitous weather, there will be a further flowering later in the Summer and early Autumn.
Many of the other flowers that we have sown in beds and positioned beneath trees etc are doing well:

- and we are now waiting to see if the second batch of wildflower seeds (selected to encourage bees and butterflies) that we have sown are going to make it (the first sowing was washed away by very heavy rain) …. encouraging signs so far and we have sown about 200 square metres-worth, so we certainly hope so! If they go ahead, then there should be some fine displays in later July onwards.
The large pond is looking particularly good - we commented in an earlier Post that the water quality this year is excellent, and the number of fish has increased, and the 'pond-related' wildlife seems particularly active, especially the dragonflies …. impossible to photograph with the cameras we have:

.... so, this is a 'cheat'!:

It is always a great pleasure to share the garden with family, friends and visitors - and of course we're missing this. So, as one of the ways of keeping communicating with grandchildren in London, we have been sending weekly 'picture-emails' on various creatures and plants in and around the garden - not quite the same as the children being here, but it may enable them to keep in touch with life over here. And at the moment we have a 'sunflower plant' competition going .... so each member of the family has a sunflower plant and we're logging their progress and sending photographs .... and certainly no cheating on this one!!:

We suspect that there will be a category to win for everyone - tallest, shortest, greenest, yellowest, most leaves, fewest leaves .... no-one can be left out!

Elsewhere in the garden, getting vegetables and herbs planted and thriving has been a priority and at the moment they're looking good:

- and we had a fine early crop of strawberries, but after that they were a bit ravaged by those heavy rains that washed away the wildflower seeds. But there were enough strawberries to enjoy, and the other soft fruit is looking good - so, 'fingers crossed'.

Our tiny hamlet is well away from any large roads and other transport systems and, apart from farming, there is no industry close-by - so, we thought it unlikely that the pandemic's travel restrictions would affect the usual wildlife we have here. We are used to hearing birdsong throughout the day and evenings (we have a 'resident' nightingale each Spring/Summer), and as we have commented in previous Posts, we're lucky enough to have quite a wide variety of bird species. But this year, while we have not seen any species new to the garden or hamlet, there does appear to be a general population increase: so, we see both green and lesser-spotted woodpeckers more frequently; have heard many more cuckoo calls; and the numbers of finches, tits, wagtails, robins, sparrows, redstarts have increased - and even birds we saw far less of, bullfinch, orioles, and hoopoes, are more in evidence and are a frequent sighting experience. So, we are not quite sure what is going on with the birds - but, it is very welcome.

Now, we have had one new visitor to the house - who has now taken up residence on a permanent basis (assuming she'll have us long-term, that is ….). Readers of this Blog may recall that in March we lost our aged, but very special cat, Snufkin. We have rarely been without a cat, or cats, for many years and so in early May we did decide to find another cat. But in view of the pandemic's effect on animals being abandoned, and the consequent pressure on re-homing organisations, we thought a 'rescue cat' would be a worthwhile idea. We were fortunate in being put in touch with Chats du Quercy, a cat welfare charity based in the north-west of the Tarn-et-Garonne department, but operating throughout France.

Lynn Stone, president of Chats du Quercy, has a proven and very successful track record in cat welfare. Since moving to France in 2001, Lynn and her husband, Ron have been involved in cat welfare. In 2004 they established a cat adoption centre. These facilities are now the primary base for Chats du Quercy.Since 2004 Lynn, Ron and more than 50 other dedicated volunteers have rehomed 1000’s of cats and kittens, and indirectly helped thousands of others all over France. The Chats du Quercy team currently help on average, 400 cats and kittens every year. In 2011, Lynn became a qualified Cat Behaviourist after studying Applied Pet Ethology, with the aim of helping place the cats we have for adoption in the best home possible for each individual cat, and in April 2020 gained further qualification with merit, in domesticated pet behaviour which brings the title CertCAB Animal Behaviour (Comportement des animaux).

So, we contacted the Centre, having seen a cat on their website. We were most impressed by the professionalism and the care that the Centre offered and we were introduced to the cat that we had seen and were immediately taken with how sweet, bright and affectionate she was. We were very well briefed by Lynn and given all the practical support we needed to adopt 'Graycie':

- who was impeccably behaved on our journey home, and is now safely at home, in a comfortable 'guest room', while she gets used to her new surroundings and prior to being able to explore the wider house and surroundings. So, a big 'thank you' to Lynn and the team at Chats du Quercy and we are looking forward to Graycie being one of the family here at 'Nichoir' and her and Oska being able to welcome our guests,

And what now ….?

And where will the next month or two take us? Well, we hope that the position on COVID-19, for the short and medium-term, will become clearer, so that people can begin to have some confidence regarding their future. And we hope that there will be a prospect of family, friends and guests being able to visit 'Nichoir' before too long. At a very local level, we will be looking at how we can 're-launch' activities like the Film Club, the Book Club and the 'Summer/Winter Fests'. So, some imagination, confidence and community spirit is required - and we will keep you in touch with how that goes.

Bon courage!

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An experiment …. update

The roses have it …..

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