Airport Adventures

Today we went to Toulouse airport to meet our friend Ted who lives in Southern Germany.  We've been friends for years and really look on him as one of the family.  Unfortunately, his plane was delayed for an hour, so we decided to have a drive around and come back later.

On our little tour of the area, we were approaching a roundabout when, suddenly, we both ducked and nearly crashed off the road as a great big monster crossed right over our heads, literally!  Ah, we thought, this is a good place to stop and wait for Ted's plane to arrive.  We were right in line with the runway, so could see each flight as it arrived.

We saw, and photographed, two aeroplanes coming in to land, then this arrived :-

It doesn't actually look that big, but it passed right over our heads, and, believe me, it was huge!  This is the Airbus A380, and when it passes over, you know about it!

For a little contrast, this is Ted's flight, a Lufthansa A321, and it looked like a light aircraft after the big boy :-

The Airbus was a bit further away from us, but you can see the difference.

Anyway, welcome home Ted, nice to see you!

Merino

Finally finished the merino I've had on a bobbin for weeks.  I plied it with some of my new merino fleece, and I'm really quite pleased with it.

It hasn't told me yet what it wants to be, so I'll put it to one side to mature. 85g of super-soft merino-ness!

Courgette Recipe

If you've had as many courgettes this year as we have, you'll be constantly looking for new recipes.  Unfortunately, I can't claim this one as mine as it came from the BBC Good Food site, but I can claim it as one of my favourites.

Courgette and Parmesan Tart

Ready-rolled puff pastry (I prefer to make my own shortcrust)
3 courgettes, sliced
2 garlic cloves (or more if you like), sliced
Olive oil
4 tbsp mascarpone*
50g grated Parmesan
Salt and black pepper

*I find the mascarpone and parmesan mix a little too thick, so I add some creme fraiche to thin it down a little)

Heat oven to 200 deg.C
Line dish or tray with pastry.
Toss courgettes and garlic with olive oil and lots of seasoning.
Mix mascarpone with half the parmesan and spread in pastry case.  Arrange courgettes in overlapping rows.
Bake 15 mins.
Scatter with remaining parmesan.
Bake 15-20 minutes.

This is a very easy recipe to prepare, and I've dished it up for lots of people. So far, everyone thinks it's fabulous - definitely one to try.

P.S.  The cotton flowers have now fallen off and there's a little bulbil underneath, so I think they were pollinated.

Day 3

Day 3 : self-explanatory.  What a colour change these flowers have had.  If someone told me two days ago this flower was a creamy white, I wouldn't believe them.  What will tomorrow bring?

Fleurs de Coton

Disaster - it's raining and cloudy today.  The flowers have closed up!  They've also changed colour (which I'd read would happen - 1st day white, 2nd day pink, 3rd day dead) and now have streaks of pink running through the petals :-

What a difference from yesterday, it doesn't look like the same flower

I went out with a paintbrush and tickled the insides of each flower, just in case they hadn't been pollinated yesterday.  This one was actually shut quite tightly, the other one is still slightly open.  It was such a lovely day yesterday I think the bees will have found them, but thought it wise to make sure!

Cotton Buds

A very quick update - I have two flower buds on my cotton plants which look almost ready to open.  I think they'll flower within the week.

Apparently the flowers only last two days, so I'll be watching closely to make sure I don't miss them.

I don't know how long it takes after the flower has dropped for the seed pod to form, but I really don't think there's enough summer left to ripen them. Anyway, we'll see - the weather for the next week is still good, and hot, but it is starting to cool down at night.  It would be a shame to get this far and not get even a teensy bit of fluff!


P.S.  Five minutes after publishing this post, I went to check on the buds again, et voila :-

This is the bud I photographed this morning.  It's a beautiful cream colour (but no scent).  And the second one isn't far behind it :-

Aren't they gorgeous?  Fingers crossed that we now get enough good, warm weather to allow them to form seed pods.  It's still 33 deg. C today, but that can change quickly if any bad weather does come this way.

Weekend in Narbonne

We got back yesterday afternoon after spending a nice relaxing weekend just outside Narbonne.  We'd actually planned to come home on Tuesday (today), but it got really windy over there.  So we decided to set off yesterday morning and travel to Castelnaudary (home of cassoulet) and spend the night there. Then, about half an hour outside Narbonne, the heavens opened and didn't stop.  So we didn't stop either!

We had our lunch in Ikea, Toulouse and had a look around, bought a few things (new kitchen knife, wine glasses, water glasses etc., all boring stuff), then set off again and just came home.

So, what did we get up to, apart from lazing around, eating, reading, watching the world go round?  Well, we'd taken our little motorbike (it's only a 125cc, but that was the biggest we could fit on the back of the campervan, and it gets us around) so we had a ride around the area to see what there was.  We found this really pretty little town not far away from where we were camping.

It's called Gruissan, and has an old ruined castle on the top of the rock in the centre.  From this side you would think it's an island, but actually it is attached to the mainland on one side.

There was a large market going on, so we stopped and had a wander around.  It turned out to be a mediaeval market, and there were lots of craft stalls with people dressed in mediaeval clothes.  They'd really made a huge effort. Then we found a stall selling witches (in Fimo) so I had to have one for my spinning wheel :-

I haven't decided on a name for her yet - any ideas?  I think she looks like a Matilda or Henrietta or Esmerelda, but if anyone has any better ideas, let me know.

This is a photo of me which is supposed to show the animals that were in the wooden enclosure behind, but somehow they got lost (photographer's fault!), but he did get the old ruined tower in the background . . . as well as the old ruin in the foreground!!

And one of Eric by the quayside (no, he's not proposing, just posing!)

This is looking out over the Meditterranean - there were lots of little boats out there, but they don't show up from this distance.

We did go and have a look around Narbonne city too, but to be quite honest, I'm not really a city person and to me, it was just like any other French city.

What else did I manage?  I finished my book - it was a very easy read called Folly by Alan Titchmarsh of all people.  I'd been lent it by a friend and it was actually quite entertaining.  I finished spinning this wool which has been sitting on my wheel for quite a number of weeks :-

It's some pre-dyed merino that I bought with the £15 fibre voucher I received when I bought my spinning wheel.  I got a large bag of mixed colours, and this is four of them that I picked out and blended.  I'll probably spin a bobbin of white to ply with it - so, unless I get my finger out, it could be hanging around for a while yet!

I also finished the 2nd sleeve for Colette's sweater dress :-

So, all in all, not a bad weekend.  I'm a bit embarrassed by how few photos I took - I'm still not used to having a camera at hand all the time and I forget.

Right, off to make lunch and then clean the camper out ready for next time.