Mirabelles

There is a type of wild plum that the French call Mirabelles. The fruit is yellow, plum-shaped and small, about the size of the end joint of your thumb. If you pick them and eat them later, they taste like very sweet plums but if you eat them straight from the tree they have a special honey-like flavour.

I have a few Mirabelle trees in my garden. Some are old and need a bit of pruning, some are crowding a fine walnut tree and need to be cut down. There are also a few self-seeded saplings around that I need to tend and nurture.

Sunday dawned cold but clear, and as the temperature rose it was clearly going to be a fine day for working outside, as long as you were wrapped up warm. The wife and I went out to cut up some of the trees I had already chopped.

The frost on the Ceanothus is melting as the sun starts warming one side, while we start cutting the wood.




















This walnut is crowded by the Mirabelles, so I will take out the ones to the right of it, and those to the left that are touching it. The trimmed Mirabelle shows its branches against the clear sky.




















In the late afternoon there is a free concert of amateur musicians in Le Mans, the first half presented by an orchestra, the second by a wind band. It starts at 4PM so it's an ideal opportunity to go and have a curry lunch, a leisurely coffee in the café on the square (shown here), before queuing for a seat. The concert hall is full, and rightly so: the orchestra is excellent given its amateur status, and the wind band were close to pro. Excellent.