Angling Lines Blog

Steph & Chris Dagg run Notaires & Alder/” target=”_blank”>Alder lakes. Through this personal Blog, Steph is going to describe her experiences of moving to France and living the dream of many UK carp anglers.

We began the holidays with a visit to a zoo at Haute Touche. Last week, as an end-of-holiday treat, we went to another one – the Zoo Parc de Beauval.

Ruadhri went there with school in June and he’d been raving about it ever since. And since we needed to film some animals for a project we’ve been asked to work on, well, that was the decider. Off we went.

Beauval is a couple of hours’ drive away. Rors seems to have got over his travel sickness, finally, so we didn’t have to keep stopping for him. But everyone was happy, we have an endless supply of music CDs in the car, I had a sock to knit, so it was a good trip.

The zoo suddenly appeared out of nowhere. There was very little signage and publicity on the way, unlike with Haute Touche. But Beauval is on a different scale altogether. We couldn’t believe how many cars were already in the very large car park, and it was only 10.30 am.  Generally French people are late starters. Cars poured in continuously as we changed into hiking boots and had a large elevenses. Rors had told us, correctly, that you’re not allowed to take picnics into the zoo. You can come back continue reading…

Here’s a photo of some very hungry baby swallows here at Notaires. I’m pretty sure this is the parents’ third brood of fledglings this year. Swallows lay 4 or 5 eggs which take up to 21 days to hatch. Then it’s another ten days until the babies open their eyes, but another ten or so until they’re ready to fly off on their own.

These swallows are hirondelles rustiques – country swallows. As well as these, there are three other types to be found in our region of France, Limousin. They are hirondelles de rochers (rock or cliff swallows), hirondelles de rivage (bank swallows) and hirondelles de fenêtre (window swallows). All four types are protected under the nature protection act of 1976. It’s forbidden to destroy either them or their nests. You face a fine of up to €9,000 or imprisonment if you do.

We all know these days that swallows migrate to and from subtropical Africa, but in the old days, people thought they spent the winter hiding in reeds around lakes. They didn’t believe such small birds could make such enormous journeys. Swallows have been known to arrive in Limousin as early as the 21st of January (in 1991 and 2002), but usually it’s around the 20th of March that they begin to appear. They really do announce the arrival of Spring.

Swallow numbers are declining. According to the species, they have decreased between 60% and 80% since the 1980s, which is extremely alarming. The reasons include destruction of habitat in Europe, droughts in Africa, use of insecticides, climate change and loss of hunting grounds. Last year we lost most of our swallows here at Les Fragnes during the freak spell of cold weather in May that brought snow and strong winds. That was a disaster for French swallows.

Our swallows are country swallows and they build their nests against or under beams in barns and other rural buildings. They are very happy to share their environment with other animals. Most of the nests here are in the stable where the guinea pig cages are and in the old woodshed which is now one of the llamas’ sheltering places. There are several nests in the llamas’ other shelter, an open-fronted stable. So it really does seem that the swallows like company.

Window swallows build on houses, along roof edges or above windows. These make themselves unpopular with home-owners because of the inevitable pile of poop that builds up underneath. This is a main reason for their nests being removed – illegally. The simple solution is to attach a piece of wood to the wall beneath the nest to stop the poop falling on heads or pathways, and to clean it once the swallows have departed in autumn. That isn’t too onerous, now is it?

Rock or cliff swallows are found on cliff faces, large rocks, barrages (dams) and bridges, while bank swallows inhabit anywhere sandy where they can burrow their nests, usually close to waterways.

We love our swallows and spend hours each year watching them catch insects over the lakes at dusk, or as they sit in long lines on the telegraph wires alongside our driveway. They dive and swoop around us as we do jobs on the farm and it’s always wonderful to see them arrive in spring. We don’t enjoy their departure in autumn so much as it means winter is on its way. And winters here are long and cold …

Well, since self-publishing my first ebook last week, I’ve sold 6 copies of Oh Auntie on Kindle and 7 on Smashwords – and I didn’t buy any of them!

A very slow start, but that’s OK. I haven’t actually done any publicity for the book. I just wanted to get an ebook out there to see how it all works. I’ll be getting my head down to plan a proper marketing campaign for future books. Heads Above Water, my non-fiction book about moving to France and our early experiences here, and which features carp heavily, is nearing completion. That’s the one I really want to push, so I need to work out how.

On the farm front, Cadella, our brand new baby alpaca, is coming on well.

Her breathing was a little laboured at times, and her nose seemed blocked, so we’d brought her and mum (reluctantly) into shelter for Monday night.

On Tuesday she had a fine runny nose and she’s breathing much better now.

Possibly she was born with a slight infection, or she inhaled fluid during the delivery process – I’m not sure but something had been irritating her nasal passages. So, we’ll keep an eye on her but she’s bouncing around happily at the moment. We didn’t rush to get the vet out. I took Nessie in to the surgery to have her stiff leg investigated – it’s arthritis – and noticed that the vet we trust most with our llamas is off on holiday. His younger colleague doesn’t have such a good success rate with our animals, shall we say! For that reason, so long as Cadella continues to make steady progress, we’ll manage the situation ourselves. She has a good appetite.

We put the three Suffolk sheep – named Lavenham, Debenham and Tuddenham after three villages close to where I grew up in Suffolk – into their field. We finally finished patching up the fencing along the back to make it what we hope is sheep-proof. Chris and Benj whacked in some more posts, and added more strands of barbed wire where it was needed. I did a bit of that too and this time didn’t make too many holes in myself. So out came the sheep from their stable. Chris had to carry number one ewe out to the field, and sheep are heavy, because she refused to walk on a lead. As did the ram, so he arrived in the field upside down being carried by his legs by Chris and Benj. If only I’d had the camera! However, we were all involved in the moving out process somewhere along the line, even Rors.

Only the second ewe condescended to come under her own steam. The three of them seem very happy with their new home. I’ve been Pavlov-ising them for a week, and they are totally conditioned to come running over to me when I rattle a bucket of pellets and shout ‘Sheepies!’. I’m hoping that if they ever escape, that will make it easier to round them up. Time will tell, I dare say!

Oh yes, and should you want to buy Oh Auntie for your Kindle, go to Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk and type the title in, making sure to opt for the ebook option. Thank you!

Steph

We’re used to journalists getting things wrong when they write about us at Notaires and our llamas in papers or magazines, but the last example takes things to extremes. The Pays du Limousin summer special lists things to do and see in Limousin over July and August. A guy showed up a month or so ago to take a few photos. He wasn’t a journalist and only had a scrap of paper with him, which I assumed were directions. He said he was taking photos of the Nouzerines area (Nouzerines is our local village). He scribbled a few names, took his pictures, and that was all. So it came as a complete surprise when someone said what a nice write-up about us they’d read in the magazine.

My heart sank. What had they said? So I went to get a copy and, oh boy, it’s worse than we feared. I appreciate that they want to promote us, but I’m aghast that no one thought to let me know what they planned to say about us and check some of the details. They’re pretty much all wrong!

First up, the intro says that you can have rides on llamas. Horrors! You can’t ride llamas, end of story, as their backs aren’t strong enough, and no one has ever ridden ours. So where this came from, I have no idea.

Somebody’s overactive imagination!

Next up, it says that we left Ireland because we couldn’t find land to set up a llama farm there and so came to France for that one purpose. We had seen three llamas at an agricultural show in Ireland and thought they looked interesting, but that was it. The whole owning llamas thing developed into a joke with our eldest son after our arrival here, which is what led us to go and visit Bernard Morestin’s llama farm. We ended up buying continue reading…

I’d been planning a blog about the economic impact of the Tour de France. I’ve done lots of research and it’ll make for interesting reading, I hope.

But as I sat down to make a start on it this evening, in between watching the exciting last stage of the Tour, I noticed an unfamiliar shape out in the llama field here at Notaires. Very small, medium brown – definitely a newcomer! I did my usual ‘just seen a baby camelid’ sprint outside, closely followed by the rest of the family, and we all went to make the acquaintance of Cadella Cavendish of Les Fragnes.

For non-cyclists out there, Cadella is after Cadel Evans who won the Tour de France this year, and who we’ve been cheering for, and Cavendish is after Mark Cavendish, the green jersey winner and phenomenal sprinter.

Cadella has been born on Elrond’s first birthday. July 24th seems to be a good day for alpaca arrivals.

Cadella’s mother is Ciara (the suri alpaca formerly known as Popham

Acoria) and her father is our very own Brendan, a huacaya alpaca. She has his colour, maybe just a shade or two lighter. And we’re pretty sure she’s a suri, judging from her slightly curly wool. However, we’ll see what happens as she gets bigger. There’s a 50% chance she’ll be a suri.

What a wonderful surprise on Tour de France final day!