Hair Obsession

When I was a young lass I remember being impressed by an advert on tv. It was a lady who extended her crossed leg while sitting on a chair and allowed a chiffon scarf to run down her leg without impediment. WOW I thought, that looks good. But I had no idea what it was all about. Later I realised that it was advertising hair removal - can't remember if it was a cream or something else. I recall phrases such as "unwanted hair", "unsightly hair", and "superfluous hair".

The last couple of days I've been in discussion about the word "oksel" - which is the Dutch armpit. It's a funny word and it always makes me laugh when Wouter proudly tells me he is "oksel fresh"! Apparently the word "oksel" comes from the Latin, Axilla, meaning the armpit - there is also an axilla artery, vein and nerve. An English alternative word is "oxter".

So, I did a search and found an old advertisement for hair removal, which was telling ladies how to get rid of "objectionable hair". With all these adjectives it seems it is a huge problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underarm_hair

I also thought, quite mistakenly, that it was a problem of recent times, with more revealing clothing (or shall we say, less clothing). But no - apparently this quest for hairlessness has been underway for several thousand years.

I found a site which talks about caveman using flints for shaving and shells for plucking. Egyptians and Romans alike tried all sorts of hair removal methods - from plucking to threading to sugaring. In the 15th century women used to pluck out their head hairs to make their foreheads seem higher and mothers used caustic poultices and animal urine on their children's heads to hopefully prevent hair growth.

In 1762 a French barber, Jean Jacques Perret, introduced the first razor, which was a long way from the first safety razor. In the early 1900s Wilkinson Sword had their first advertising campaign for hair removal for women stating that underarm hair was unhygienic and unfeminine. During the war when things were either expensive or unavailable, fine sandpaper was used as a depilatory.

Excerpt from HAIR, the song from HAIR, the musical:

She asks me why
I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hair that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know

Today there are a myriad of ways to remove hair - from the old methods above to the new waxes, electrolysis, lasers, creams and so on. But it still doesn't explain our obsession with why we want to remove this natural hair, which you would think that after several thousand years of being removed might get the message it's not wanted. Fashion seems to play a big part but I wondered if it's because we don't want to seem 'primitive' like our fellow chimpanzees, who, for some strange reason, do not seem to have a problem with underarm hair....

Hoopoe and Mole

Hoopoe

Hoopoe - we have a hoopoe - 'huppe fasciee' (fr), or 'hop' (dutch) visiting our garden. Apparently these birds are pretty dirty in their habits. I'm wondering if it's the one who has been pooping purple on my nice white washing..... But the good thing is that they can eat things like the larvae of the processionary caterpillar.

The birds, according to the Wiki, are summer visitors and nesters throughout central Europe and central Asia. Its bill is long and tapered and it has strong head muscles which allow its beak to open while in the ground - perfect for eating the caterpillar larvae! Larger prey is beaten against the ground or a stone is used to kill it. The milky blue eggs laid are quickly discoloured by the dirty nest conditions.

Apparently the female has a uropygial (or preening) gland which can be quickly modified with a foul (pardon the pun!) rotten meat-like smell which acts as a deterrent against predators, parasites and is also probably an antibacterial agent. The smell is absorbed into the feathers of female and young alike, so I guess if you had a nest in your garden you'd soon know about it! In addition to this secretion, nestlings are able to direct streams of faeces at nest intruders from the age of six days, and will also hiss at intruders in a snake like fashion. The song is an "oop oop" sound, which gives rise to its name.

Image from http://snipurl.com/exnjz

Moles

We also have a mole - taupe (fr) or mol (dutch) - he or she came out of its hiding place a few days ago after all the concrete drilling we are having done at the moment - we found out they don't like noise or vibrations... So we did a bit of investigating and apparently they eat their own weight in grubs every day. They like damp, dark places under trees or other plants, often live under a concrete path and build their little network of feeding holes from there. They seem to need about a quarter acre of land each to live on and have a complex system of tunnels and chambers. They have found mole fossils dating back 130 million years.

It seems they are hard to get rid of as they build safety walls in parts of their underground network to keep themselves safe. The French advertise all sorts of traps and electronic devices in brico (hardware) shops. Apparently they don't spread diseases like some rodents can do, but they do eat fungus and other harmful underground grubs and bugs in your garden as well as aerate the soil. Mice and other small rodents sometimes use the burrows for feeding leaving the moles to get the blame for eaten roots and seeds.

The good news is that they will also feed on the processionary caterpillar larvae, which could explain why even though there might be thousands of caterpillars, there seem to be comparatively few moths. We wonder why people don't seem to like them - the only reason we can think of is that they spoil the appearance of our lawns and gardens - yes, I know they can make a mess, but for our garden, one or two are welcome if they help to keep pests at bay and we will gladly rake the mounds of soil flat.

Image from http://snipurl.com/exp3f

House Plans

This is for anyone interested to see what the house plan looks like and to see what we have done and how it all fits together. If you use this in conjunction with the photos already posted you should be able to figure your way around. In all pics, top is roughly north.

The "before" plan clearly shows the layout of the ground floor. From the start of the passageway by our bedroom and the current bathroom, down to the loo door, is around 9 meters. We just figured out that the ground floor (240) plus the room we will eventually have upstairs gives us a floor space of around 380 square meters.

The upstairs is currently just open space apart from one centre support wall and nothing is lined etc. The upstairs is shown by the red outline (below) - the plan is eventually to make 2 large bedrooms, an office for Wouter and a spacious bathroom area. There will also be a service duct in the (north) space close to the roofline as this area is not high enough to stand in - even for littlies like me!

Beside the back bedroom is another bedroom which will be sacrificed to make the stairway up, plus the new bathroom and loo.

In the laundry you can see 2 steps down, and then to the left of that, a few stairs - this leads down to the cellar. As the bottom of the cellar is below ground level, Wouter had to pump it out a few days ago as the ground water level is quite high at the moment, being end of winter/early spring. Wouter says you can see it's happened more often as there are marks on the concrete showing earlier levels as well as a place for a pump (which was removed before we got here).

This last picture shows what we have already worked on and completed.

Limoux Carnaval

Today we decided to check out the Carnaval. The Carnaval boasts being the longest-running in the whole world. According to the information I've read, the festival was first recorded in writing as early 1600s, but it's believed to have been going since long before that.

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first troupe with brass band

For over 2 months each year, 3 times a day on Saturdays and Sundays, the groups come out into the Place de la Republique and visit cafe owners and parade to the public. The players are not recognisable and carry a long wand (carabena) and wear a mask, and are accompanied by a band playing a miraid of tunes. They all carry confetti and after they leave, the place is covered with the colour of the visiting troupe. Today the players went to one cafe and each took a dance partner when the band started to play.

bull with 'trophies'

Note the trophies on the bull....
It's a lovely festive and carnaval atmosphere, and we saw that many people make the effort to come out and see the spectacle. Lots of cameras are poised and people vie for the ultimate position for a good photo. The link below is the best I could find in English with the history, stories, pictures and further links for those interested to read more (take a look, even if just for the photos).

http://www.languedoc-france.info/041106_fecos.htm

Spanish Lady

Cheesy Grin

Another update

We worked on the toilet and back bedroom at the same time, due to the location. The toilet, as you may remember, had pinky-purple floral paper and a beige radiator. The walls underneath were a kind of yellow and the back of the door was a greeny-yellow.

before

The walls were stripped, cleaned and covered with a mix of paint and sand and this was painted with the Vent de Sable colour from the hallway but at a quarter strength. The light colour is lovely on the walls and it highlights the flecks of stone in the light floor tiles. The radiator was painted white and the paintwork (window and door) have been painted blanc casse - broken white. The ceiling was painted a soft white.

after

tile detail

All together it's a warmer feel and smarter look than before. Just a note that the outside of the door remains as is until we have finished with the new bathroom and toilet as there will be so much mess and we decided to wait until that's finished to decorate the hallway. No pics yet of the bedroom as I still have to do the windows.

We are working like the clappers to get the large dining room done so that when the plumber and builder come in to work on the new bathroom and toilet we can focus on getting those finished - getting there!

who's behind the new door?

Meanwhile the weather has taken yet another lovely turn and it was positively warm today with 22 degrees and Cassy panting and looking for shady spots! Spring is really in the air and the plants - and weeds - are busting into bloom - it's really quite amazing. The change of seasons here is much more dramatic than in NZ (at least Auckland) with the hesitant "shall we flower or shall we wait a bit" feeling. We can expect this weather for the next 10 days or so.

acacia (or mimosa) - classed as a weed here!

erable

planting gladioli bulbs

Lastly, it was Cassy's 8th birthday last week, so on the weekend we decided to give him a nice long walk at one of the local parks. He was having a ball sniffing places he doesn't normally go and suddenly he disappeared from view - just at that moment we realised we were close to the fishing pond.... We heard "quack, quack, quack" and called Cassy back. As we reached the brow of the hill, there he was standing, dripping wet, wagging tail, ducks looking put out and two elderly fishermen further round the pond.... as I slipped Cassy's leash on both Wouter and I tried to look casual as we continued our walk. Needless to say, Cassy had a great time! Luckily for us he didn't try to catch a fish or a duck.

Spring Is In The Air

The weather took a lovely turn for almost two weeks and so while we would love to keep working inside, we felt we must make a start on our vegetable plot and other areas if we are to reap the rewards later in the season.

Daytime temperatures were getting up to 19.5/20 degrees, which is not bad for February - you could compare this to end of August in NZ. Our nights are still cold but the days have been brilliant and I'd love it to be like this most of the year. Having said that, we are just having a cold snap - Kiwis should know what that's like :) Many things have started to flower - the apricots, cherries, mimosa and a lot of spring flowers both in pots and in the garden. the irises are shooting up large new leaves in preparation for their beautiful flowers (which I can't wait to see).


Now preparing the soil is important - we let things slip during late autumn and winter for a few reasons - we didn't have our things from NZ until late October, we planted a few things in beds but soon after that the weather deteriorated pretty fast, the soil is not very nice to work when it's wet - it's very claggy clay just like Auckland soil, but once it dries it becomes sandy - we will need to add organic matter over time to improve the soil structure.

We found out that the land we are on used to be a river, and therefore the soil is from the river bed. We find lots of stones while working in the garden and leave them in small piles until we have enough to go around and collect. Wouter is the 'slasher' (as well as the pole dancer!) and is getting rid of the large weeds, turning the soil once to dry it out a little and then running a manual tiller over it to fine it up. It seems to be working ok.

preparing more beds, broad beans in foreground (left)

Before winter set in Wouter planted a whole lot of things which just sat there all that time nice and cosy - heaps of onions, garlic, shallots, broad beans and so on - won't mention the obvious...... and now they are starting to shoot away. In the beds which are already prepared I've planted some more radishes - we got quite a few before the winter, but the ones which were left were eaten out by slugs and the local rabbit! An aside here - I put the old and crusty radishes in the wheelbarrow so they could be put onto the compost heap or just thrown out with the rest of the weeds. The following morning Wouter found Cassy half in the barrow having a feast of radishes...

Some seeds have been sown in pots to germinate and await warmer nights before being planted out. These include capsicums, tomatoes, chillies and aubergines. They should be planted out when they are a bit bigger as we will have problems with snails and slugs - we will do our usual trick of "hunting by torch light" and either burn them or pop them into boiling water and let the birds eat them the next day.

We've also bought lots of flower seeds - things like sunflowers, prairie mix, poppies, cornflowers and so on. It should be a riot of colour here later in the season.




For now we have jonquils flowering, daffodils, crocuses (in pot), cowslips, violets. The existing hydrangeas are budding - we transferred some round to the southern garden where they have the spring sun but in summer have shade from one of the trees - they are looking happy so far and we will need to water them in summer. The oleanders we planted earlier are looking fine, and some of the other shrubs we transferred from spots in the garden we didn't think they belonged also seem to like their new spaces. I must say that it's quite fun playing around in a new garden - loved my one in Waimauku and often miss some of the things there (especially my lemon tree, which I may have mentioned before...) but it's exciting to create a new look with different variables and see how we manage to feed ourselves and have flowers throughout the year from this new place.

Now for another story about the dog - while we were working in the garden, Cassy was getting the occasional ball throw and having a lie down on the soft soil in between - every so often he would get up and sniff around underneath the fruit trees with obviously fond memories of the figs which used to be there when we first moved in. Lo and behold, he managed to find some old potatoes - so, the garden once again becomes an interesting place.

While our backs were turned he had a munch - I called out to Wouter to check out what he was eating and we found it was raw, but fresh, potato. The following morning the potato magnet was strong and Wouter found Cassy slinking back into the laundry, looking very guilty, and his paws were so caked with mud that his toes couldn't fit together any more - this must have been really uncomfortable and was a dead give-away as to where he had been - you've guessed - in the vegie patch to find more potatoes. Pity we don't have truffles......

I'll just wait until they're not looking...