Discovering the Bouchardais

Posted on June 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

Just to the west of us is a little town called L’Ile Bouchard. I’m afraid that we regard it more as the favoured location for our supermarket shopping than anywhere very touristique.

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But then this took our eye in La Rolandiere’s reception.

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Great gadgets: Solwise antenna and wifi hotspot

Posted on June 22, 2014 | 2 comments

It’s nice when a plan comes together. Our campsite provides wifi for a modest fee per day, but on past experience the signal is far from strong. It’s a pain to have to sit sideways in a particular spot with the notebook tilted at a particular angle in order to get a consistent signal. We’d looked at wifi boosters at the Caravan Show, but the packages were quite expensive.

Over to Messrs Solwise:

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Return to La Rolandière

Posted on June 21, 2014 | 1 comment

We first discovered La Rolandière in, I think, 1985. Our children were very small and we enjoyed camping holidays for the freedom and fresh air. La Rolandière was just about perfect.

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Ethel the Little Porkie

Posted on June 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

We finally went to see Ethel, our little porkie, who is being raised on our behalf by Samphire at Sycamore Farm. You can see a video about the farm and My Little Porkie here.

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A caravan trip to see Ethel the pig

Posted on June 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

There were two reasons for our trip. First was to see Ethel the little porkie before she gets turned into sausages and chops. Second was to do another caravan rehearsal before our first trip to France in a couple of weeks.

There’ll be a separate in-depth review of Ethel and all the other creatures at Sycamore Farm in my next blog entry, but meanwhile here’s a picture of the girl herself:

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Fruit and some veg

Posted on May 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

Mostly pictures on this blog entry. Jean has been in a frenzy of planting out, and I’ve been doing a bit of strimming and cultivating (with much more to do, I know, I know). But the damp warm conditions have been ideal for seedlings, so we’re optimistic for this year. Here’s a walk round our allotment sites:

The "new bit" is almost fully planted now

The “new bit” is almost fully planted now


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Caravan cleaning

Posted on May 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

We’re going to Norfolk in the caravan early next week to see our “little porkie”.

Although we’d given it a wipe over at the start of the season, we decided that the caravan needed a proper clean. Now that we’ve got the motor mover, getting the van out of its parking slot is much easier, so we can tow it across the site to the washing area without too much strain! No need to connect everything up for a hundred yard trip, though:

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Tidbitting, then death in the afternoon

Posted on May 25, 2014 | 2 comments

We’ve often observed the apparently gentlemanly behaviour of the cockerel in sharing treats with his flock of hens. I’ve only recently found out (hat tip to @Hetty’s Hen House) that it’s called tidbitting.

Here he is being offered a gooseberry:

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Cobb barbeque for camping

Posted on May 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

I’m not sure whether this latest purchase is going to be a good idea or not. Indeed I’d never heard of the Cobb barbeque until I read an enthusiastic recommendation from a fellow motorcyclist on The Rev Counter.

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Sansaire sous vide curry

Posted on April 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

The latest experiment in sous vide cooking was to prepare a simple Indian dish. I chose aubergine and chicken curry, not least because our local Indian grocery shop had some most beautiful aubergines. But also because both the main ingredients have their challenges. It’s quite easy for aubergine to become an unidentifiable slop when it’s cooked in a sauce, and similarly difficult to prevent the chicken drying out.

Did I succeed? Well, yes and no. The aubergine pieces retained their integrity and their taste. The chicken was perfectly cooked. The sauce was fresh and zingy with spices. And the dish looked nice – it wasn’t just a bowl of brown gloop:

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