The château de la Hunaudaye

The château de la Hunaudaye is a genuine medieval defensive fortress, a château fort, complete with thick walls, a drawbridge and a moat.   It's now owned by the Conseil Général of the Côtes d'Armor, and you can visit it.

It's not been restored, but there has been a neat project of computer modelling, based on surveillance of the ruins using a drone, that has resulted in a detailed presentation (and physical model) that you can see.

There is a handy leaftlet that guides you around the castle, and explains what you are looking at, and its historical significance.  And where the old staircase was unuseable, a fancy metal one, that I rather liked, has been installed.

Well worth the visit.

The coast

I do like rugged coasts, and the north Brittany coast is a good example.   Little bays and beaches, some only accessible at low tide or by boat; cliffs, often covered in flowers, that fall down to the sea; little pools in the rocks.  We had a couple of days before we went to St Malo, so we did some exploring.   Here are some random pics taken on various walks.   They don't convey the calm silence, but perhaps they might give you a feeling for the place.

The windmill

There it was, on a grassy knoll, not far from our hotel where we stayed for the plant fest.   No information panels told you anything about it, it was just there.  There was also a seat where you could sit and look at it.   And a guy mowing the grass.

Fête des jardins

In search of a short break, we found the Garden Festival at Tréveneuc in Brittany, so we went.   The event is held in the grounds of the local château, and features plants from nurseries in France and farther afield.  The range of trees, shrubs and other plants was impressive, and we bought some Dahlia tubers and begonia corms from a Dutch guy who was there.    We will go again if we need to plan a garden from scratch.

There was a talk (indoors) in the afternoon by Fergus Garrett, the head gardener at Great Dixter in SE England.   He's a world-class gardener for sure, but somewhat lacking in presentation skills, I felt; it was hard to know what point(s) he was wanting to make during his pitch, that was a bit random.  There's no doubt however, that his garden is most impressive, and at all seasons.

The weather wasn't too kind.   We had had several days of fine Spring weather, with daily highs of 18°C or so, and sunny spells.  But on the day of the fête we got 14° high, and in the afternoon it chucked down while we were inside at Fergus Garrett's  talk.   The car park was in a series of fields, so the rain made getting out quite interesting for people who stayed to the end of the day.   It only takes an inch or so of mud on a grassy field and all those cars without 4WD exhibit a decided reluctance to go anywhere.

Tips for future visits:  bring sarnies, park where you can access a tarmac road easily from the grassy field car park in case it rains, come early.

After the show we explored the Brittany coastline for a bit, before going on to St Malo to meet my sister and her hubby on a day trip.

Preparations

I'm getting the veg patch ready for this year's plants.   Today I built the bean frame for the climbing beans, with bamboo poles given to me by Leo.   The tomato stakes are in, although the tomatoes are only at the two leaf stage.  I have decided to try out the idea of watering them by using plastic bottles with holes in, buried in the ground next to the plants.   Porous terra cotta pots are in favour at the moment, as a water saving device, but they're way too expensive relative to the value of veg that they water.   The plastic pots are free.

There is manure on the bed next to the tomato bed; this area is for brassicas and I will need to rotovate the compost in before I plant them out.   

I have mowed the grass area next to the veg patch, but I read that dandelions are one of the bee's most valuable sources of food at this time of year so I have carefully avoided mowing them. 

Wood splitting

You might have seen ads for these tapered drills, promoted for splitting wood for the fire.   I bought some, and yesterday I had occasion to split some oak logs that were a bit too big for the stove.  So I decided to try them out.

I got out my big SDS drill (about 1kW I think), fitted the bit and set to work on the oak log.  I stood on the log to steady it.  (It seems that this is what they do in the ads.)    The bit sank into the the wood, buried itself to about half its depth, at which point the log was still unsplit and the force needed to turn the bit was now greater than I could apply to the drill.  The drill forced its way out of my hands and whacked my arm. 

Now, faced with a jammed bit and an unsplit log,  I decide to withdraw the bit from the log to try again.   With the drill in reverse, I stand on the log, but this time it's the log that frees itself rather than the drill, and it rotated through half a circle and whacked my foot.

So I'm hopping about, cursing the world in general, but it's not until a while later that I decide to inspect the damage.   Corker of a bruise, eh?   I don't think I will be using those log-splitting bits again.  Not on oak, anyway.   Back to the axe.

Powers of observation

I made the mistake of adding some nice crumbly compost from the compost heap, to commercial potting compost, before planting seeds in it.   Now we play "spot the tomato".

P.S. I found 7 so far.   Tomato seedlings can be indentified by their reddish stems that are covered in tiny hairs.