13 May 2018

La fin de l'hiver ?

I awoke this morning to the sound of radiators popping and snapping as the metal expanded. Hot water was flowing through them. In other words, the heat came on. It's chilly outside. And we got half an inch (12 mm) of rain yesterday afternoon. That's 12 liters of water on every square meter of ground. Our lot is 2300 square meters (half an acre), which means that 2300 x 12 liters = 27,600 liters of water — 7,300 gallons — fell on it!


The photo above shows you the view from the kitchen window just before I went out for the afternoon walk with Tasha yesterday. Oh well. Today is the last Saint de Glace ("ice saint") day on this year's calendar. It's not supposed to be as chilly outside tomorrow morning as today, but we are supposed to get more rain today and tomorrow. With any luck, we'll be able to set some plants out in the garden plot by the end of the week.


If I had waited half an hour longer yesterday to go out with the dog, she and I wouldn't have got so wet. The rain stopped just as we were getting back to the house. I snapped the sunset photo above a few minutes later.


By the way, Walt went to the outdoor food market in Saint-Aignan and got a kilo of local strawberries. And he used half of them to make the tart in the photo above yesterday afternoon. He made the crust from scratch, a batch of pastry cream, and then laid on the fresh strawberries, which he glazed with apricot jam. Wish you had been here...

12 comments:

  1. I lit the fire last night, it was chilly indoors as well as out. A twenty degree difference from only a few days before.
    Gorgeous tart!

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    1. Every time I get a new windows update, especially a features update like the one I just finished downloading and installing, I think of you and Nick. Hope it doesn't become a headache for you too. Maybe it'll just give you some indoor activities to do during this chilly snap.

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  2. I wish I'd been there too. That is one beautiful tart.

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    1. Tout le crédit est pour Walter. Moi, mon job c'est d'en manger !

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  4. Yes, I would love to share that tart with you and Walt. We all would, still we get the pleasure of seeing it on your blog together. Bon Dimanche.

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  5. What an AMAZING tart! How fabulous!

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  6. Ken, you can't complain too much about the cold weather when you can get local strawberries. We turned off our furnace for the season when we returned from France last Sunday (although it has gotten a little cold at night), but local strawberries are a long way off.

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  7. Wish I could take you up on that offer, Ken! Walt could be a patissier in his next life!
    We've had California strawberries at good prices for several weeks but probably not for another month for the local variety. My heat has been off for at least a month. Hope you, too, will be enjoying warmer weather!

    Mary in Oregon

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  8. Now, if the science folks were really doing something useful, they'd find a way to send such delicious treats through the intertoobz so we could all share. Such a glorious dish.

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  9. My, that tart looks tempting!

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