Design flaw

They have replaced the old metal shopping carts at our favourite supermarket with ones made largely of plastic.  These new ones are lighter and easier to maneuver, but they have a flaw:  when you hang off the back and scoot them along, they tip up.  When they're full of shopping, the weight keeps them horizontal, so you can scoot them out of the shop, but not in.  Big problem.

Competition

We have Nespresso machines for coffee.  We were getting fed up with spreading ground coffee everywhere whenever we made a cup, and decided that this new-fangled system would solve the problem.  So we have a machine for the house and a "pro" machine (takes a different shape of capsule so people don't nick them from work for their home machines) for the gîte, and have had these machines for a few years.

I'm getting the impression that Nespresso are suffering a bit from competition in this market.  I've noticed a few brands of compatible capsules on the market, and Nespresso have launched a new different-shaped capsule, incompatible with the old machines, and for which there is no competition at present.  We buy our capsules as needed, a system that works fine.  But now, Nespresso are encouraging us to pay a fixed amout each month to build up a credit that we can call down at will.  Er, no thanks.

We have had occasional problems with the pro machine, and have always called out a fixer to fix it.  Doesn't cost too much and the machine is reliable enough, generally speaking.  But now we have been obliged to take out a service contract.   This entitles us to one call-out per year I think, but it's not something we would have done without duress.

All signs of increasing competition.

So what do you do if you want to break in to this market, established by Nespresso?  Well, compatible capsules is one possibility, or you could try marketing your own brand of proprietory capsules and corresponding machines.  (You might try both, of course)   Here's a picture of a new proprietory system and introductory offer that I noticed in our gîte food supplier recently.

Basically, you buy 150 of their coffee capsules and you get a free machine.  Since that means that your coffee costs you €0.286 (+VAT) per capsule it comes out cheaper than Nespresso, and you don't have to fork out anything for a new machine.  If you don't like the coffee, you can just ditch the machine; all you have to do is drink 150 cups of it.  And how bad can it be?  And how do you combat that as a tactic for someone who wants to break into your market?

Masquerade

The Masquerade rose seems jubilant this year.

The hair of the hare was here

I rather like seeing the wildlife around here, but the problem is, I think this fellow is partial to cabbages.  Mine are unprotected.  I think I might be in for a poor harvest.

Garden update - May 2019

This year, May is devoid of clients in the gîte, which gives us time to blitz the garden just when it's growing the fastest.  We have been able to trim the hedge, weed the whole thing and sort the veg patch out.   Everything is probably as neat as it will ever be this year: the customers start arriving next week.

On the left of the veg patch are the tomatoes: 10 Rio Grande, 5 cherry and 10 coeur de boeuf.   Under the tarpaulin behind them I have planted butternut squash and melon.  To the right, from rear to front are aubergines, runner beans and chili peppers.   On the raised bed to the right are lettuce planted between various brassicas: cabbage, broccolli and cauliflower.  The brassicas are not doing too well, about half seem to just have faded away.  A root problem?

The next bed to the right has beans.  I planted berlotti beans for cassoulet under twigs from hazlenut treets that provide climbing supprt.   I also put in some broad beans but I think that mice or birds have eaten most - I have 4 seedlings out of about 20 beans.   Next year I will have to start them in pots.  Perhaps I will have to create a seedling nursery area.

The onions and shallots in the next raised bed are doing well, and I planted out leeks this weekend in the same bed.  I am hoping for good things here.  Next door are the gooseberries and strawberries, that seem to nourish the birds more than they do me.  And finally at the end, the spuds.  I planted Miss Blush again since I love the flavour, and this year I an trying out a variety that makes big potatoes for baking: "Samba".

I am trying, for the first time this year, "companion planting" which is an excuse for planting flowers among the veggies.  I put African Marigolds between each tomato plant, have dotted Zinnias about, and I put French Marigolds (seeds harvested from last year's plants) around the brassicas.  There are Nasturtiums in the somewhere too.   We shall see if this all helps.

Meanwhile, the Iris are flowering.

Fings wot go wrong (II)

I went out this morning to do a bit of routine maintenance on the gite.   Since I pass the boiler shed on the way, I look in to check all is well.   It's not: there's a big drop in the water pressure in the system - a leak somewhere.  I find the leak, and spend the morning fixing it.

So in the afternoon I think, well, it's a nice day so I'll do something outside in the garden, that's a bit simpler than the gite maintenance I had planned for the morning.  I'll mow the lawn.  Halfway-through, the mower stops.  No nasty chinking sounds from the engine, so probably nothing serious.  It's not out of petrol, though, and when I turn over the engine, it nearly fires.  Likely a block in the fuel line.  I'll look at that tomorrow.  A night out on the grass won't hurt it.

Yesterday I turn on the Android phone.  It doesn't give me a keyboard when I need to type something into it.  Apparently a factory reset is the best option.  That's for this evening.

I have to drive to Evron this afternoon, and it's a nice day so I take the roof down on the car.   I drive into a shower.  *sigh*

Cutting hedge technology

There's a big hedge at our place, long and deep, going around the main parts of the garden.   It's a bitch to trim, and I've been doing nothing but that for the last three days.  It's finished now.  Next trim - Autumn.

I have a fair amont of kit to help with the job: a scaffolding set with wheels, and three hedge trimmers: a mains-electric-powered one with a long pole, one battery-powered and one 2-stroke.   The 2-stroke one is heavy, loud and smelly but powerful, the battery one is quieter and lighter but weak.  The electric long pole is heavy, quiet and powerful and necessary for cutting across the top of the hedge.

I'm thinking that it might be time to combine the benefits of lightness and power and get a small, mains-electric-powered trimmer.   It's the lightest you can get since the trimmer only houses the motor and not the fuel as well, and a mains -powered 600Watt one should be powerful enough, quiet and light.  The mains cable won't be a problem because it'll be out and in use anyway for the long throw one, and I'm getting tired of coming in smelling of 2-stroke fumes, or breathing them in, come to that.

I have thought about the possibility that a small tractor with hedge trimmer would be a good idea.  I'd really love to be able to drive it along the two sides of the hedge, trimming as I go.  The job would be done in an hour max, but it's not actually possible to do that - there are trees, shrubs and piles of firewood in the way.   That ground is also far from level, so I'd end up with an undulating top to the hedge, something that I try to avoid.

You can see part of the finished hedge in the pic below.  I used to be a bit more fastidious about getting it straight, flat and horizontal but these days I'm just up for taming the beast.   I left the trimming so late one year that the hedge flopped over a gap in it, so I'm trying to make an arched tunnel.  It's early days, but it looks like it will come to fruition in a few years.  And who doesn't like spooky tunnels?