Thursday, August 17, 2006
Saturday 12 August 2006
I finished reading « The English » by Jeremy Paxton last week, and planned to read Sartre’s « La Nausée » which I had studied vaguely many years ago, and which N claimed to have brought to La Neuve-Lyre and put on the new bookshelf. It wasn’t there however, so I began « Lost for Words » by John Humphrys, about the current state of the English language, intending to pick up « La Nausée » when I got to Saint-Denis only to find it wasn’t there either, and that N was beginning to doubt whether he ever did have a copy!
We had a very good couple of days in Saint-Denis; driving there on Tuesday afternoon in record time, 1 hour 45 minutes, well in time for an early supper before setting off for the cinema, meeting Nigel Palmer at the corner of his road. It only took about half an hour on the metro direct to the Champs Elysées, something we had not tried before, and a pleasant short walk to the very large cinema. The last time we had seen the Champs Elysées had been on TV on 14 July, watching the procession.
The film - « La Tourneuse de Pages » - was excellent, an exciting story about musicians, full of suspense and very well made. We didn’t of course see NP’s subtitles written with N’s help, but the director - a viola-player who had co-written the story - spoke before the film began. I also learned in conversation with NP that he was responsible for the English subtitles of many of the French films I had seen at the Arts Cinema in Cambridge over the years, and that a little cinema in Saint-Denis worked on the same principle; a membership fee, reduced tickets and future programmes sent in the post. Must look into this in the autumn; I thought I was going to see far more cinema in France than I have done.
Before going to dinner with the Palmers on Wednesday evening I had a good day’s shopping - the morning in Saint-Denis and the afternoon in Paris - while N cleaned the windows and got on with dusting the books in his library and sticking labels in them. I stocked up on cosmetics at Sephora, bought two sets of little blue hand towels, a bag and pair of shoes for 5 euros each, a new traditional blue and white metal number plate for the house at LNL (as the previous one has been grown over by the Virginia creeper) and a notice for the shower room door. My best purchases however were on the Thursday morning just before coming back; an unlined orange cotton jacket in C&A for 4 euros 99, which I am very pleased with indeed, and, on the second-hand bookstall which replaces the market on Thursday mornings, a copy of « La Nausée » for 2 euros! A nice traditional 1930’s paper cover. Will finish John Humphrys first though; I am sure he won’t mind coming second to Sartre.
The dinner on Wednesday evening was very pleasant, especially nice to be able to walk round the corner to their house in a few minutes, and to meet their almost two-year-old son, and to speak more French than usual; all of us speaking an interesting mix of the two languages (including the almost two-year-old, before he went up to bed.) We started the meal with a wonderful mixture of soft cheese, strawberries and salad, excellent and quite unlike anything we had ever eaten before.
When we got back on Thursday afternoon we were able to have tea in the garden, but since then the weather has gone downhill, we both had to go and find jumpers to put on and N even began muttering about putting the heating on. After a couple of very grey days, this afternoon it has rained hard. I hope it will not be too wet or unpleasant when we go to the Château at Beaumesnil tomorrow and Monday. On Friday morning one of my first tasks was to take the Italian bedspread which had dried full of dirt and soap (after the washing machine drama) on a clothes horse, and rinse it several times in the bath. It was very hard work; thank goodness for automatic washing machines! It then hung again on the clothes line - fortunately it was very windy by then - finished off once again on the clothes horse and is now finally back on the new attic bed. Other laundry news: I managed this morning to take the pink dye out of five monogrammed Italian napkins (washed by N in Italy together with a red sheet) with a marvellous purpose-made product, and they are now the same colour as all the other white ones. (While boiling in the product the pink and green embroidery turned yellow and brown, but once rinsed it became pink and green again!) This means we have at least eight clean usable napkins which match the large tablecloth, all embroidered AV (Annunciata Villani) ready for our guests.
Monday 14 August 2006
Also in preparation for large numbers of guests, we brought back with us from Paris a very comprehensive set of modern cutlery, collected by N over the years, including cake slice, teaspoons and coffee spoons, and fish knives and forks. This was all squashed into one box, so during a shopping trip to Bernay in the rain on Saturday afternoon I bought another wooden cutlery box and divided it all between the two. I also bought half a dozen more large wine glasses; N had selected a case of Bordeaux to be drunk on the evening of Saturday 26th after the music making and we tried a bottle; it was wonderful, so we tried another just to make sure! It needs really large glasses, and we had a total of 9, hence the half dozen extra. We had decided before going to Paris last week that when we got back we would go along to our local traiteur, to see about ordering food for the Saturday lunch. On Friday morning I saw a sign on the door saying it was closed for holidays until Wednesday 23rd, too late. Before we had really thought about what to do next, I saw a brochure of dishes to order while we were at the supermarket in Bernay, and after some discussion with the lady on the charcuterie counter we placed an order, which we must collect on the Friday evening between 6 and 8 o’clock. It consists of ham, charcuterie, salads, beef, chicken and a good selection of cheeses, and will thus save A Lot Of Time.
On Saturday afternoon and evening N made enough Boeuf Bouguignonne for fourteen people (hopefully) for the evening of Saturday 26th to go along with the Bordeaux. The kitchen was filled with good smells (and splashes) of home-grown shallots, bacon, wine, beef, mushrooms and garlic, and we let it cool down in the oven overnight, before freezing it on Sunday morning. This took some organisation, as there is very little room left in the big freezer, so some went into the kitchen freezer, all in a haphazard collection of five different-sized containers.
Yesterday - Sunday - it rained hard all day, N was very pleased for the lawns and the water butt, but I think the weather forecasters have got their timing wrong, it was supposed to be today, which has been quite fine! We ate roast chicken for lunch, followed by gooseberry crumble (one I had made earlier, thereby creating a little more space in the freezer) and it all seemed quite wintery. This was because of going to the evening with Chopin and Sand which started at 9 o’clock, so we only needed a little supper. I had originally thought of wearing a light summer dress, but this had to be changed for black trousers and my new raincoat. Fortunately by the time we left it had stopped raining, although very wet and muddy everywhere, and the sky was filled with fascinating cloud patterns on our route to Beaumesnil. It was the first time we have ever been out for the evening here in Normandy.
The event took place in the Grand Salon of the château, after a long queue during which we spoke to a woman about some of the other events, including the Madame Bovary meal the next day. We were all squashed into the salon on tiny red folding chairs (like those N brought here for his music) and like most French events, it started late. We both enjoyed it tremendously however. It consisted of three actors - a man and two women - reading letters and biography by Sand and Chopin, interspersed with waltzes, preludes and mazurkas played by a pianist. It concerned a stay in Majorca in the winter of 1838; Chopin was ill, the locals hated them and they ran out of money, far from idyllic! Georges Sand’s life sounds fascinating, must track down her biography « Histoire de Ma Vie. »
After getting home at about 11.30 we were not up very early this morning, and at 12.15 left to go back to Beaumesnil, for the Madame Bovary Lunch, due to start at 1.00. A much nicer day, sunny and cloudy but dry, and it was just as well we set off in good time as just as we reached the château gates I realised I had not brought the tickets with me. We rushed back quickly to get them, and then back again to Beaumesnil; I have never known N drive so fast in his life, and we arrived at about five past one, only to find, as we might have guessed, everybody standing around in a field waiting for something to happen, which it didn’t until about 1.30. French unpunctuality again! N spoke again to the woman we had met last night, who turned out to be the wife of the organiser, and he mentioned his interest in the book museum, and she introduced us to the woman who had been responsible for that part of the programme the day before. We also learned that this was the first year such a festival had taken place. He then said he was interested in meeting musicians and got introduced to the mayor; while all this was going on eventually a horse-drawn carriage rolled up with Emma and Charles Bovary (Georges Sand and Frederic Chopin from the night before!)
We were all ushered into a large barn, with tables laid with flowers and white cloths, and barrels of wine and jugs of cider at the end. « Emma and Charles » read descriptions from the novel about the wedding guests and the meal, and very very much later we actually started eating. We found ourselves opposite another English couple, and mentioned being late and forgetting the tickets; he said we could have been an hour late and still not have missed anything! N was next to - and spoke at length with - the husband of the book woman; I spoke to the English couple and briefly to some people the other side of me, but mostly just watched the proceedings.
When it came the food was excellent; provided by the local charcutière. During a few words at the end the organiser said he had just told her to go and buy a copy of « Madame Bovary » and reproduce the wedding meal, I don’t know if that was exactly it, but it worked, right down to the pièce montée wedding cake! She and her helpers were in suitable nineteenth-century costume. There were various meats - I had chicken - vegetables, gratin dauphinois, cider, red and rosé wines, calvados, cheeses, salad, nougat and finally once it had been cut - cake and coffee. Because of the delay in serving the meal (due to problems with electricity supply to the barn) the whole afternoon’s programme was running late, so the 3.30 event - a reading of suitable texts by the river - took place in the barn, and those of us who hadn’t got tickets were able to join in and listen to this anyway, while we waited for the cake to be cut. The same three actors again, reading Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire and Rimbaud, a lot of which I am pleased to say I recognised. They were accompanied this time by a young woman flautist, who came up to us later having recognised N from the RATP orchestra in Paris. We eventually left at about 4.30, and drove back nice and slowly having decided that next year, now we knew what it was all about, we would be in a position to book for a lot more events.
Wednesday 16 August 2006
For a few weeks now we have been aware of a New Generation of swallows in our garage, and ever since Emanuel the electrician fitted a nice new neon light they have been perching on it and making terrible mess of it. N has now fitted up a plank of wood over it in the hope that they will sit on there instead. We had noticed the mess but would never have actually seen them in place if we hadn’t come home late on Sunday evening. We have also noticed that the second - hitherto uninhabited - nest is now undergoing a make-over, new mud and grass round the top.
Our bags of rubbish are put in the garage too, awaiting collection days which happen rather haphazardly twice a month. Up to now this has been fine, but over the last few days the edges of the black sacks have been nibbled, and chicken bones and other rubbish pulled out on onto the floor. N thinks rats are the culprits; I think it could have been a fox or a cat. A few weeks ago he called me as an expert witness to identify some possible cat droppings found one morning in the vegetable garden; I thought they could well be cat, but who knows? The only cat I have seen round here is the one at the cycle shop, asleep in the window, but N thinks that during the night he could well get on his bike and nip down the road and over the wall into our vegetable garden…..
Yesterday - the Quinze Août - was a holiday and first thing in the morning we went down the Beaumesnil road for the third day running, to a Foire à Tout at Bernay. It promised to be interesting, as it was held in a road full of antique shops, and was just as good as expected. Within a few minutes N had purchased a set of (smallish) copper saucepans, and I had bought a little white metal shelf unit from the same stall. By the end he also had a stamp album full of Swiss stamps, a book on melons and a reproduction Flemish portrait of a lady, and I had a book on Proust’s Normandy, and two tiny butter dishes. We stopped at an Italian delicatessen we had seen before (but which always seemed to be closed) and while studying the window heard someone say « Good Morning! » behind us, it was the English couple we had met at lunch on Monday, complete with dog, whom we had not met, only heard about. After a few minutes’ pleasantries, they moved on and we went into the delicatessen and bought some nice little things for lunch, memorable for its being the first one in the garden for some time! The weather forecast is still not getting it right; although we did have a storm about nine o’clock last night, there has been far more sunshine about than expected. We are just hoping it continues into next week.
N has screwed hooks underneath my recipe bookshelf for the copper saucepans, which are now hanging in a tasteful row. Not sure whether I will use them or not, but he reckoned no French kitchen should be without some. (There is a larger set in regular use at Saint-Denis.) He has also fixed up the new metal number plate on the front gatepost; we noticed that all the other houses in the street have identical numbers so hope this is not another local rule we are not aware of. In « The English » J Paxman notes with surprise that in some parts of Germany there are laws concerning times for washing cars or beating carpets; obviously he has not visited La Neuve-Lyre. He makes this point illustrating the importance of individual rights and freedoms to the English. I have almost finished reading « Lost for Words »; meanwhile N has found his copy of « La Nausée ».
I finished reading « The English » by Jeremy Paxton last week, and planned to read Sartre’s « La Nausée » which I had studied vaguely many years ago, and which N claimed to have brought to La Neuve-Lyre and put on the new bookshelf. It wasn’t there however, so I began « Lost for Words » by John Humphrys, about the current state of the English language, intending to pick up « La Nausée » when I got to Saint-Denis only to find it wasn’t there either, and that N was beginning to doubt whether he ever did have a copy!
We had a very good couple of days in Saint-Denis; driving there on Tuesday afternoon in record time, 1 hour 45 minutes, well in time for an early supper before setting off for the cinema, meeting Nigel Palmer at the corner of his road. It only took about half an hour on the metro direct to the Champs Elysées, something we had not tried before, and a pleasant short walk to the very large cinema. The last time we had seen the Champs Elysées had been on TV on 14 July, watching the procession.
The film - « La Tourneuse de Pages » - was excellent, an exciting story about musicians, full of suspense and very well made. We didn’t of course see NP’s subtitles written with N’s help, but the director - a viola-player who had co-written the story - spoke before the film began. I also learned in conversation with NP that he was responsible for the English subtitles of many of the French films I had seen at the Arts Cinema in Cambridge over the years, and that a little cinema in Saint-Denis worked on the same principle; a membership fee, reduced tickets and future programmes sent in the post. Must look into this in the autumn; I thought I was going to see far more cinema in France than I have done.
Before going to dinner with the Palmers on Wednesday evening I had a good day’s shopping - the morning in Saint-Denis and the afternoon in Paris - while N cleaned the windows and got on with dusting the books in his library and sticking labels in them. I stocked up on cosmetics at Sephora, bought two sets of little blue hand towels, a bag and pair of shoes for 5 euros each, a new traditional blue and white metal number plate for the house at LNL (as the previous one has been grown over by the Virginia creeper) and a notice for the shower room door. My best purchases however were on the Thursday morning just before coming back; an unlined orange cotton jacket in C&A for 4 euros 99, which I am very pleased with indeed, and, on the second-hand bookstall which replaces the market on Thursday mornings, a copy of « La Nausée » for 2 euros! A nice traditional 1930’s paper cover. Will finish John Humphrys first though; I am sure he won’t mind coming second to Sartre.
The dinner on Wednesday evening was very pleasant, especially nice to be able to walk round the corner to their house in a few minutes, and to meet their almost two-year-old son, and to speak more French than usual; all of us speaking an interesting mix of the two languages (including the almost two-year-old, before he went up to bed.) We started the meal with a wonderful mixture of soft cheese, strawberries and salad, excellent and quite unlike anything we had ever eaten before.
When we got back on Thursday afternoon we were able to have tea in the garden, but since then the weather has gone downhill, we both had to go and find jumpers to put on and N even began muttering about putting the heating on. After a couple of very grey days, this afternoon it has rained hard. I hope it will not be too wet or unpleasant when we go to the Château at Beaumesnil tomorrow and Monday. On Friday morning one of my first tasks was to take the Italian bedspread which had dried full of dirt and soap (after the washing machine drama) on a clothes horse, and rinse it several times in the bath. It was very hard work; thank goodness for automatic washing machines! It then hung again on the clothes line - fortunately it was very windy by then - finished off once again on the clothes horse and is now finally back on the new attic bed. Other laundry news: I managed this morning to take the pink dye out of five monogrammed Italian napkins (washed by N in Italy together with a red sheet) with a marvellous purpose-made product, and they are now the same colour as all the other white ones. (While boiling in the product the pink and green embroidery turned yellow and brown, but once rinsed it became pink and green again!) This means we have at least eight clean usable napkins which match the large tablecloth, all embroidered AV (Annunciata Villani) ready for our guests.
Monday 14 August 2006
Also in preparation for large numbers of guests, we brought back with us from Paris a very comprehensive set of modern cutlery, collected by N over the years, including cake slice, teaspoons and coffee spoons, and fish knives and forks. This was all squashed into one box, so during a shopping trip to Bernay in the rain on Saturday afternoon I bought another wooden cutlery box and divided it all between the two. I also bought half a dozen more large wine glasses; N had selected a case of Bordeaux to be drunk on the evening of Saturday 26th after the music making and we tried a bottle; it was wonderful, so we tried another just to make sure! It needs really large glasses, and we had a total of 9, hence the half dozen extra. We had decided before going to Paris last week that when we got back we would go along to our local traiteur, to see about ordering food for the Saturday lunch. On Friday morning I saw a sign on the door saying it was closed for holidays until Wednesday 23rd, too late. Before we had really thought about what to do next, I saw a brochure of dishes to order while we were at the supermarket in Bernay, and after some discussion with the lady on the charcuterie counter we placed an order, which we must collect on the Friday evening between 6 and 8 o’clock. It consists of ham, charcuterie, salads, beef, chicken and a good selection of cheeses, and will thus save A Lot Of Time.
On Saturday afternoon and evening N made enough Boeuf Bouguignonne for fourteen people (hopefully) for the evening of Saturday 26th to go along with the Bordeaux. The kitchen was filled with good smells (and splashes) of home-grown shallots, bacon, wine, beef, mushrooms and garlic, and we let it cool down in the oven overnight, before freezing it on Sunday morning. This took some organisation, as there is very little room left in the big freezer, so some went into the kitchen freezer, all in a haphazard collection of five different-sized containers.
Yesterday - Sunday - it rained hard all day, N was very pleased for the lawns and the water butt, but I think the weather forecasters have got their timing wrong, it was supposed to be today, which has been quite fine! We ate roast chicken for lunch, followed by gooseberry crumble (one I had made earlier, thereby creating a little more space in the freezer) and it all seemed quite wintery. This was because of going to the evening with Chopin and Sand which started at 9 o’clock, so we only needed a little supper. I had originally thought of wearing a light summer dress, but this had to be changed for black trousers and my new raincoat. Fortunately by the time we left it had stopped raining, although very wet and muddy everywhere, and the sky was filled with fascinating cloud patterns on our route to Beaumesnil. It was the first time we have ever been out for the evening here in Normandy.
The event took place in the Grand Salon of the château, after a long queue during which we spoke to a woman about some of the other events, including the Madame Bovary meal the next day. We were all squashed into the salon on tiny red folding chairs (like those N brought here for his music) and like most French events, it started late. We both enjoyed it tremendously however. It consisted of three actors - a man and two women - reading letters and biography by Sand and Chopin, interspersed with waltzes, preludes and mazurkas played by a pianist. It concerned a stay in Majorca in the winter of 1838; Chopin was ill, the locals hated them and they ran out of money, far from idyllic! Georges Sand’s life sounds fascinating, must track down her biography « Histoire de Ma Vie. »
After getting home at about 11.30 we were not up very early this morning, and at 12.15 left to go back to Beaumesnil, for the Madame Bovary Lunch, due to start at 1.00. A much nicer day, sunny and cloudy but dry, and it was just as well we set off in good time as just as we reached the château gates I realised I had not brought the tickets with me. We rushed back quickly to get them, and then back again to Beaumesnil; I have never known N drive so fast in his life, and we arrived at about five past one, only to find, as we might have guessed, everybody standing around in a field waiting for something to happen, which it didn’t until about 1.30. French unpunctuality again! N spoke again to the woman we had met last night, who turned out to be the wife of the organiser, and he mentioned his interest in the book museum, and she introduced us to the woman who had been responsible for that part of the programme the day before. We also learned that this was the first year such a festival had taken place. He then said he was interested in meeting musicians and got introduced to the mayor; while all this was going on eventually a horse-drawn carriage rolled up with Emma and Charles Bovary (Georges Sand and Frederic Chopin from the night before!)
We were all ushered into a large barn, with tables laid with flowers and white cloths, and barrels of wine and jugs of cider at the end. « Emma and Charles » read descriptions from the novel about the wedding guests and the meal, and very very much later we actually started eating. We found ourselves opposite another English couple, and mentioned being late and forgetting the tickets; he said we could have been an hour late and still not have missed anything! N was next to - and spoke at length with - the husband of the book woman; I spoke to the English couple and briefly to some people the other side of me, but mostly just watched the proceedings.
When it came the food was excellent; provided by the local charcutière. During a few words at the end the organiser said he had just told her to go and buy a copy of « Madame Bovary » and reproduce the wedding meal, I don’t know if that was exactly it, but it worked, right down to the pièce montée wedding cake! She and her helpers were in suitable nineteenth-century costume. There were various meats - I had chicken - vegetables, gratin dauphinois, cider, red and rosé wines, calvados, cheeses, salad, nougat and finally once it had been cut - cake and coffee. Because of the delay in serving the meal (due to problems with electricity supply to the barn) the whole afternoon’s programme was running late, so the 3.30 event - a reading of suitable texts by the river - took place in the barn, and those of us who hadn’t got tickets were able to join in and listen to this anyway, while we waited for the cake to be cut. The same three actors again, reading Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire and Rimbaud, a lot of which I am pleased to say I recognised. They were accompanied this time by a young woman flautist, who came up to us later having recognised N from the RATP orchestra in Paris. We eventually left at about 4.30, and drove back nice and slowly having decided that next year, now we knew what it was all about, we would be in a position to book for a lot more events.
Wednesday 16 August 2006
For a few weeks now we have been aware of a New Generation of swallows in our garage, and ever since Emanuel the electrician fitted a nice new neon light they have been perching on it and making terrible mess of it. N has now fitted up a plank of wood over it in the hope that they will sit on there instead. We had noticed the mess but would never have actually seen them in place if we hadn’t come home late on Sunday evening. We have also noticed that the second - hitherto uninhabited - nest is now undergoing a make-over, new mud and grass round the top.
Our bags of rubbish are put in the garage too, awaiting collection days which happen rather haphazardly twice a month. Up to now this has been fine, but over the last few days the edges of the black sacks have been nibbled, and chicken bones and other rubbish pulled out on onto the floor. N thinks rats are the culprits; I think it could have been a fox or a cat. A few weeks ago he called me as an expert witness to identify some possible cat droppings found one morning in the vegetable garden; I thought they could well be cat, but who knows? The only cat I have seen round here is the one at the cycle shop, asleep in the window, but N thinks that during the night he could well get on his bike and nip down the road and over the wall into our vegetable garden…..
Yesterday - the Quinze Août - was a holiday and first thing in the morning we went down the Beaumesnil road for the third day running, to a Foire à Tout at Bernay. It promised to be interesting, as it was held in a road full of antique shops, and was just as good as expected. Within a few minutes N had purchased a set of (smallish) copper saucepans, and I had bought a little white metal shelf unit from the same stall. By the end he also had a stamp album full of Swiss stamps, a book on melons and a reproduction Flemish portrait of a lady, and I had a book on Proust’s Normandy, and two tiny butter dishes. We stopped at an Italian delicatessen we had seen before (but which always seemed to be closed) and while studying the window heard someone say « Good Morning! » behind us, it was the English couple we had met at lunch on Monday, complete with dog, whom we had not met, only heard about. After a few minutes’ pleasantries, they moved on and we went into the delicatessen and bought some nice little things for lunch, memorable for its being the first one in the garden for some time! The weather forecast is still not getting it right; although we did have a storm about nine o’clock last night, there has been far more sunshine about than expected. We are just hoping it continues into next week.
N has screwed hooks underneath my recipe bookshelf for the copper saucepans, which are now hanging in a tasteful row. Not sure whether I will use them or not, but he reckoned no French kitchen should be without some. (There is a larger set in regular use at Saint-Denis.) He has also fixed up the new metal number plate on the front gatepost; we noticed that all the other houses in the street have identical numbers so hope this is not another local rule we are not aware of. In « The English » J Paxman notes with surprise that in some parts of Germany there are laws concerning times for washing cars or beating carpets; obviously he has not visited La Neuve-Lyre. He makes this point illustrating the importance of individual rights and freedoms to the English. I have almost finished reading « Lost for Words »; meanwhile N has found his copy of « La Nausée ».
Monday, August 07, 2006
Tuesday 1 August 2006
Last Friday we had a lovely day at the seaside; having promised ourselves we would have a day out once we had finished all the wall-papering and bookshelves and had stopped waiting for the electrician to turn up. It was also a reconnaissance trip to plan a similar trip with N’s family in later this month. We set off for Deauville, a pretty route through Broglie, Orbec and Lisieux and N was particularly pleased to see that we got there in under an hour and a half. I had been to Deauville once before in 1974 and N once in 1965, so we were due another visit.
The last beach we had visited together was in Italy, but this was much more like English seaside with gabled guest houses, crazy golf, pony rides, buckets and spades and lots and lots of space on the sand. It took us some time to find the beach; several harbours full of sailing boats to walk past first, and when we did it was a very long way to walk over the sand until we reached the water’s edge. After the heat wave and then the storms of the day before it was ideal weather; blue skies, sunshine, sea breezes and about 26 degrees. We walked along the water’s edge - me with my toes in the sea, avoiding the jellyfish, and N on the sand - and made a fine collection of shells. Towards midday we went back into the town; N still making mental notes about car parking and distances for the family visit, and found a very good restaurant for lunch, whose customer care included looking after dogs and babies, and where there seemed to be well cared-for regular clients. We both ate fish and drank cider which seemed appropriate. Unfortunately there was not much time to get back to the car, and we had to go very quickly down a street full of beautiful shops, all sorts of food, shoes and clothes, so I certainly hope this was not my last visit for another thirty years. (I probably won’t go on the family visit, due to preparations for the musical weekend)
We then set off towards Honfleur, not far away along a beautiful winding tree-lined coastal road; I didn’t know the northern coast of France was so hilly and so pretty. N knew Honfleur from researching Erik Satie whose birthplace it was, but it was my first visit and I was very impressed. Unlike Deauville, it was very old and small and principally a port and fishing village, and full of tourists and stalls selling fish and nougat and cider and all sorts of souvenirs. We walked up and down some of the narrow streets and I managed to find a traditional Breton bowl with Katherine on (spelled correctly!) a sign of increasing numbers of English tourists, I think; there were lots of them about. Having decided we should not return from this trip without a bottle of Calvados and/or Pommeau, we went into a little specialist shop and N asked which was better, the five- or the ten-year-old Calvados. The patron said some people preferred the newer, it was young and fresh but the more mature Calvados was also appreciated for other different qualities, and I said just like people, and he agreed. So we bought one somewhere in the middle.
We looked at a very strange church (Saint Catherine’s!) where the young Satie had had organ lessons; all built of wood, with a roof like a boat (made by the boat builders in the port) and with two naves side by side, one wider than the other. I was surprised a wooden church had lasted so long (since the 1700’s) without burning down. N was taken by a large copper preserving pan in an antique shop, but we decided it was far too much money for something to be used so infrequently. After buying few more odd things, including bread for the evening and local magazines, we set off home, as usual by a different route, and taking a wrong turn through Lisieux. N liked the idea of returning to buy more Calvados and other local produce for presents, and I thought I would like go there for Christmas shopping.
Once home we sat in the garden and had a glass of Calvados, very strong and warming! After he had arranged all the seashells on the windowsill of the verandah, N set about peeling most of the remaining turnips ready for soup. This took most of the weekend on and off; after they had been cooked together with some onion I put them all in the blender, and ended up with a mixture looking very like last week’s wallpaper paste! By the time he had « balanced » it, it tasted quite good; he had added in various quantities curry powder, orange juice, salt, butter and sugar, and there was about 3 litres of it. I just hope no-one asks us for the recipe.
On Saturday morning the first priority was getting the remaining old iron down from the hayloft and piled up in the woodshed, ready for the blacksmith to take away. N went up the ladder to the loft and threw it all down on to the grass, and I picked up the more manageable pieces and carried them round to the woodshed. Not for the first time, I thought why pay for an exercise programme when you can get all this exercise for nothing? We couldn’t make out what a lot of the pieces were, possibly old railings, they fell on the grass in an unruly heap and I tried to drag out the smaller ones, like some giant outdoor game of Spilikins. Also in the loft N found a For Sale notice, for something dismantled (a shed? A greenhouse?) with telephone number La Neuve-Lyre 49, together with a large pile of professional hairdressing magazines dating from the early 1960’s.
Sunday’s main activity was another Foire à Tout at Beaumesnil; the last one had been so good I didn’t want to miss it. The weather was wet and windy however, and the fair much smaller and in a slightly different place. It didn’t take long to look at everything. N bought a Rumtopf pot; as we told the stallholders, we had been talking about setting one up, as N was keen to preserve odd bits of our leftover fruit. (It has since had a couple of bottles of rum poured into it and various fruits, and is in a place of honour on the Italian sideboard, ready for Christmas) I bought a tiny wooden folding stool for 2 euros; not quite sure where it will go yet. Just as we thought we had seen everything I caught sight of a copper preserving pan under a table; we pulled it out and had a good look, it seemed fine, just a bit dusty. It was only 20 euros so we bought it, a much better buy than the expensive one at Honfleur. Another thing we saw but didn’t buy was a battery-operated ostrich, about fifteen inches high, running and whistling a tune which I think I eventually identified as « The Whistler and His Dog » . Strange but true.
On the way home through La Ferrière-sur-Risle we stopped at a conventional market and N bought more lettuce and leek plants from the stall we usually see at La Neuve-Lyre on Mondays, and I got raspberries and apricots for dessert and to put in the Rumtopf. We bought the bottles of rum at the village shop and managed to pick up a leaflet about literary and musical activities at the Château de Beaumesnil; I had been trying to find out about these since I saw a poster in the village advertising, amongst other things, « Le Repas de Noces de Madame Bovary », (Madame Bovary’s Wedding Breakfast.) On Monday morning I rang to enquire and managed to reserve two of the only six remaining tickets; 1 o’clock on Monday 14 August, 30 euros per person. More than that we don’t know, except that we have to book for at least two activities, so when N comes back tomorrow will find something else - not difficult, they all look interesting - and go and collect the tickets on Thursday. (When in Britain in June I read an article in a magazine in which the interviewee was asked which literary meal she would most like to have been at. Her answer was Ratty’s picnic in « The Wind in the Willows »; good, we have even tried to reproduce it, not easy with ingredients from ASDA, but I think Emma Bovary’s Wedding Breakfast will be just that bit better.) Have got out my copy ready to re-read the relevant excerpt.
It was odd to have Sunday lunch indoors in the dining room, for the first time for many weeks. In the afternoon I finally began my baking and freezing programme for what N has described on the programme for the Family Music Weekend as « English Tea ». I made two fruit loaves which are now carefully wrapped and in the freezer, now getting very full. Yesterday I added about 3 dozen Fairy Cakes. In the morning N had set off for a couple of days in Saint-Denis; although he has had post forwarded here, he felt he ought to air the flat and check on the geraniums, as it is now four weeks since we were there. I thought about going, but decided there is plenty to do here! I have since frozen some excellent green beans, given the salon a very good clean, and this afternoon varnished the « telephone » chair, the one we found here in the garage and which I had expensively re-caned; now that the hall has been repapered its turn has come. At the same time I varnished the screen we found in the hayloft, ready to have the fabric put on. At the market yesterday morning I found (on the sundress stall) a pair of very good reddish-pink cotton cropped trousers for 5 euros! Weather a little chilly for them at present, but will be just the thing when it gets hot again. I sat in the garden for a bit yesterday afternoon but today is very windy, and there have been a couple of showers. This means I haven’t had to worry about the vegetables.
This morning the blacksmith came to collect the iron; he had told N it would be some time before August 15 so I was pleasantly surprised and N even more so when I phoned and told him. Unfortunately he came on his own; it looked like very heavy work and if he’d had help I would have asked them to put the heavy table in the studio back on its feet. There were three lots of things to be taken: the iron from the hayloft, the old radiators - too heavy for N even to move - the blacksmith managed somehow to lever them on to a porter’s trolley and drag them into his van - and seven old garden lamps, too old to get working again, but interestingly made by the blacksmith himself for a previous owner 15 or 20 years ago. He said he was taking it to be melted down at some sort of old iron depository at L’Aigle; he hasn’t taken any payment from us and we assume he will get some money in exchange for it there, so everybody’s happy.
Thursday 3 August 2006
Weather very overcast and chilly; I have reverted to wearing my winter dressing gown and jeans (but not at the same time.) We have harvested out first melon, the same size as the ones in the market but harder and hairier. N has put it on the table in the verandah, to ripen in the sun, he says. What sun? I said. Yesterday evening we cut and ate our first leeks, long and thin and strongly flavoured, I could smell them three rooms away. These will be excellent candidates for soup, if only there is room in the freezer and enough plastic boxes.
Saturday 5 August 2006
We have still had no news of Odile, our possible weekend guest; in any case N thought she might have meant 5th or 6th, rather than 5th and 6th. The weather has improved a little, sunny and breezy and not really cold, we were able to have breakfast in the garden thus morning, and coffee after lunch. We had a busy afternoon on Thursday; collected our tickets for the Madame Bovary lunch, plus some for an evening with Chopin and Georges Sand on Sunday 13th, from the tourist office at Beaumesnil, then on to Bernay. It was a cold, grey afternoon and miserable English families were wandering around the shops with anoraks over their holiday clothes, no doubt annoyed that they’d picked the week after the heat wave. I got some plastic lace to cover the shelves in my newly refurbished Perspex cupboard, copper cleaner for the new preserving pan and a waste bin for the studio, but was unable to find the small hand towels N now thinks necessary for the ground floor wash room, for his après jardin hand-washing. We came home via Lapeyre to collect N’s Velux blinds for the attic windows; it was unusually crowded, perhaps as it was raining everybody thought they’d go and choose a new kitchen. N fitted the blinds after tea; the smaller window just has a plain black blind but the larger one has a clear slatted option too, in case of glare from the sun during the day. Anyway, guests should now be able to sleep well in both rooms without being disturbed by the sunrise.
We have had a phone call from Nigel Palmer regarding the film N helped with, and have been offered tickets for the pre-première on Tuesday 8th at a cinema in the Champs Elysées. At first N wasn’t keen on going as he’d on only just driven back, but then agreed we ought to, and the date fits well in between our supposed guest this weekend(?) and the events at Beaumesnil next week. This time I am quite looking forward to going back; because the weather is cooler I think and because it’s always better to have a reason for going. I phoned back to say thank you to NP and accept and ask him to leave the tickets for us in the post box at Saint-Denis, but had to leave a message. I shall be happier when we have had confirmation. Currently we plan to leave here on Tuesday afternoon (after I have been to the hairdresser in the morning) and come back some time before Sunday, to be in time for our evening with F Chopin and G Sand.
Much of the rest of the time on and off we have spent fitting the fabric on the folding screen. It is an elegant dark red and gold design, and strictly plastic tablecloth material, in fact the piece left over just fits the Italian dining table and looks quite good, and could also be useful on the garden table. It has been very fiddly; we spread glue over the criss-cross slats, then pressed down the fabric and came back later to try and tuck the edges between the two pieces of outside frame all the way round. This last part was my job; I used a little tool found with the Italian sewing things which I think may have had something to do with lace-making. I then attempted to stick all the corners in; this and the tucking varied a lot - some of it worked perfectly, some was OK and some didn’t go right at all. (And I have a lot of glue on my fingers.) However, I have done as much as can be done and it looks fine from a distance; currently it is standing in the grande pièce on the opposite wall from the bookshelves.
This amazingly really was the last big indoor job to be done; there will be plenty to do outside with the shutters, plaster and outhouses, and obviously eventually more indoor decorating, but this is the end of Our List! This afternoon we have been re-doing a few annoying jobs; a curtain tie-back hook needed replacing in the Italian bedroom, and the wooden shelf over the Perspex cupboards has been slightly wonky ever since it was put up several months ago. It has now been straightened, and the shelves covered with the leftover plastic lace, matching the cupboard underneath.
Any left over time, thought and energy goes towards arranging the Family Visit and Music weekend; I have set up documents for menus and room allocation, and am continuing Baking for Freezing and Bedding Organisation. N brought back about a dozen little folding chairs from Saint-Denis and has arranged them as « an orchestra » in the studio, although the acoustic has not been tested yet, and in any case he hopes to play some of the music in the salon, where we know the acoustic is good, and there is a lot of good space and those of us working in the kitchen will be able to hear! Family and guests and have all been sent maps, timetables, lists of music and an agenda.
Sunday 6 August 2006
Still no sign of our guest; it’s been a funny kind of weekend, lots of hanging about wondering how many we’ll be for the next meal. On Friday I made Blanquette de Veau for the first time ever; I think it’s the first time ever I’ve been able to buy stewing veal, from the local butcher. It turned out as it should and N claimed it was very good, but I’m not sure I liked it. While researching recipes for English Cakes, I found a hand-written recipe for an American Rhubarb Cake; I have no idea whose the writing is or who gave it to me when, but it’s just what we need at the moment - I made it and it’s excellent. Lots of brown sugar and cinnamon, moist and a bit like Eve’s Pudding, in fact more of a pudding than a cake. I have also made Stuffed Peppers with the first two of our own green peppers, and today a new recipe I found (in an old book; must read it more carefully!) for a wonderful Spinach and Orange Soup, although there still seems to be just as much spinach in the garden. After all these dishes N has said what a pity Odile isn’t here, she has really missed something. I noticed again at the vegetable stall on Friday how much more aware I am of seasonal produce here than in Britain; in the spring there were asparagus and the early garriguette strawberries everywhere, now even the later strawberries are over, together with cherries and raspberries, and on Friday there were several varieties of different coloured plums, some of which don’t exist in Britain, and for the last week or so there have been plentiful supplies of melons. Our first melon is still ripening, it is put out in the sun every day, like a baby in a pram, meanwhile we have counted sixteen others of varying sizes in the melon bed!
Today N has scraped a lot of moss off the top of the tiled wall which separates the vegetable garden from the road behind, (molto mosso, he said) one of the things he wanted do as soon as we got here, but says he was glad he left it until now as after the heat it is very dry and easy to remove. On the garden side of the wall, under the tiled overhang, there are now several bunches of onions drying and a large net bag of shallots. This afternoon I have made Coffee Ice Cream from a recipe I had years ago - hoping it will be even better with Norman farm cream - we shall taste it this evening and then perhaps make some more for guests. I have also cleaned my new copper preserving pan with the cleaner bought at Monsieur Bricolage, where there is a vast array of cleaning products.
Monday 7 August 2006
Ice cream very good, will make more next week. Still no news from Odile, having expected a phone call or sudden arrival all the weekend. This morning I cycled with bottles to the bottle bank then on to the cycle repair shop for the first time, to get a pump, not only for my bike which is beginning to need it, but also for the wheelbarrow and for a small child’s bike which was here in the garage when we arrived. When I have looked in the cycle repair shop from time to time I have seen what looked like a very disagreeable woman, lots of fishing tackle and notices about fishing permits, and more recently a very pretty tabby cat asleep in a corner of the shop window on a pile of pedals and spanners. I disturbed the cat while parking my bike against the window, but am pleased to report that the woman was very nice indeed (perhaps dealing with disagreeable customers?) and that there are also cages of budgies and canaries inside, and that I bought a pump which she assured me would fit any kind of bicycle, and the wheelbarrow. We have yet to try it. Outside the boulangerie I met Marie-Antoinette, whom I have not seen for some while as she has been on holiday in the Vendée with her family. We discussed the heat wave, the building next to her house, holidays, and - once more - how dirty this house was when it belonged to Mme V. At the market I managed to find another pair of 5 euro trousers in the same style and size as last week, but black.
At lunchtime we finally had a phone call from N Palmer, who had been away all weekend; he will come to the film with us tomorrow evening, and has invited us to dinner on Wednesday evening. We will set off after lunch tomorrow (Tuesday) as planned and come back on Thursday afternoon, which will hopefully give me time to do a bit of shopping for things unobtainable here. I tried to get an appointment to have my eyebrows done, but they were booked up until the 18th! Obviously the female population of Saint-Denis is getting ready for holidays.
This morning I took the Italian bedspread from the new single bed in the attic to send for dry cleaning, but they were on holiday until the 23rd, by which time our guests will be here. I hung it on the washing line to blow the dust out and N suggested we put it in the washing machine. This was a mistake - later I noticed the machine had stopped completely, no red light, so we opened the door and took out the very heavy bedspread and lots of filthy water (bedspread went back on washing line again) and then managed to pull out the machine from the new kitchen cupboards and N heroically succeeded in putting a new fuse in the (British) plug. Great relief all round, I’m sure it will/would be very difficult to try and find someone to repair it here.
Last Friday we had a lovely day at the seaside; having promised ourselves we would have a day out once we had finished all the wall-papering and bookshelves and had stopped waiting for the electrician to turn up. It was also a reconnaissance trip to plan a similar trip with N’s family in later this month. We set off for Deauville, a pretty route through Broglie, Orbec and Lisieux and N was particularly pleased to see that we got there in under an hour and a half. I had been to Deauville once before in 1974 and N once in 1965, so we were due another visit.
The last beach we had visited together was in Italy, but this was much more like English seaside with gabled guest houses, crazy golf, pony rides, buckets and spades and lots and lots of space on the sand. It took us some time to find the beach; several harbours full of sailing boats to walk past first, and when we did it was a very long way to walk over the sand until we reached the water’s edge. After the heat wave and then the storms of the day before it was ideal weather; blue skies, sunshine, sea breezes and about 26 degrees. We walked along the water’s edge - me with my toes in the sea, avoiding the jellyfish, and N on the sand - and made a fine collection of shells. Towards midday we went back into the town; N still making mental notes about car parking and distances for the family visit, and found a very good restaurant for lunch, whose customer care included looking after dogs and babies, and where there seemed to be well cared-for regular clients. We both ate fish and drank cider which seemed appropriate. Unfortunately there was not much time to get back to the car, and we had to go very quickly down a street full of beautiful shops, all sorts of food, shoes and clothes, so I certainly hope this was not my last visit for another thirty years. (I probably won’t go on the family visit, due to preparations for the musical weekend)
We then set off towards Honfleur, not far away along a beautiful winding tree-lined coastal road; I didn’t know the northern coast of France was so hilly and so pretty. N knew Honfleur from researching Erik Satie whose birthplace it was, but it was my first visit and I was very impressed. Unlike Deauville, it was very old and small and principally a port and fishing village, and full of tourists and stalls selling fish and nougat and cider and all sorts of souvenirs. We walked up and down some of the narrow streets and I managed to find a traditional Breton bowl with Katherine on (spelled correctly!) a sign of increasing numbers of English tourists, I think; there were lots of them about. Having decided we should not return from this trip without a bottle of Calvados and/or Pommeau, we went into a little specialist shop and N asked which was better, the five- or the ten-year-old Calvados. The patron said some people preferred the newer, it was young and fresh but the more mature Calvados was also appreciated for other different qualities, and I said just like people, and he agreed. So we bought one somewhere in the middle.
We looked at a very strange church (Saint Catherine’s!) where the young Satie had had organ lessons; all built of wood, with a roof like a boat (made by the boat builders in the port) and with two naves side by side, one wider than the other. I was surprised a wooden church had lasted so long (since the 1700’s) without burning down. N was taken by a large copper preserving pan in an antique shop, but we decided it was far too much money for something to be used so infrequently. After buying few more odd things, including bread for the evening and local magazines, we set off home, as usual by a different route, and taking a wrong turn through Lisieux. N liked the idea of returning to buy more Calvados and other local produce for presents, and I thought I would like go there for Christmas shopping.
Once home we sat in the garden and had a glass of Calvados, very strong and warming! After he had arranged all the seashells on the windowsill of the verandah, N set about peeling most of the remaining turnips ready for soup. This took most of the weekend on and off; after they had been cooked together with some onion I put them all in the blender, and ended up with a mixture looking very like last week’s wallpaper paste! By the time he had « balanced » it, it tasted quite good; he had added in various quantities curry powder, orange juice, salt, butter and sugar, and there was about 3 litres of it. I just hope no-one asks us for the recipe.
On Saturday morning the first priority was getting the remaining old iron down from the hayloft and piled up in the woodshed, ready for the blacksmith to take away. N went up the ladder to the loft and threw it all down on to the grass, and I picked up the more manageable pieces and carried them round to the woodshed. Not for the first time, I thought why pay for an exercise programme when you can get all this exercise for nothing? We couldn’t make out what a lot of the pieces were, possibly old railings, they fell on the grass in an unruly heap and I tried to drag out the smaller ones, like some giant outdoor game of Spilikins. Also in the loft N found a For Sale notice, for something dismantled (a shed? A greenhouse?) with telephone number La Neuve-Lyre 49, together with a large pile of professional hairdressing magazines dating from the early 1960’s.
Sunday’s main activity was another Foire à Tout at Beaumesnil; the last one had been so good I didn’t want to miss it. The weather was wet and windy however, and the fair much smaller and in a slightly different place. It didn’t take long to look at everything. N bought a Rumtopf pot; as we told the stallholders, we had been talking about setting one up, as N was keen to preserve odd bits of our leftover fruit. (It has since had a couple of bottles of rum poured into it and various fruits, and is in a place of honour on the Italian sideboard, ready for Christmas) I bought a tiny wooden folding stool for 2 euros; not quite sure where it will go yet. Just as we thought we had seen everything I caught sight of a copper preserving pan under a table; we pulled it out and had a good look, it seemed fine, just a bit dusty. It was only 20 euros so we bought it, a much better buy than the expensive one at Honfleur. Another thing we saw but didn’t buy was a battery-operated ostrich, about fifteen inches high, running and whistling a tune which I think I eventually identified as « The Whistler and His Dog » . Strange but true.
On the way home through La Ferrière-sur-Risle we stopped at a conventional market and N bought more lettuce and leek plants from the stall we usually see at La Neuve-Lyre on Mondays, and I got raspberries and apricots for dessert and to put in the Rumtopf. We bought the bottles of rum at the village shop and managed to pick up a leaflet about literary and musical activities at the Château de Beaumesnil; I had been trying to find out about these since I saw a poster in the village advertising, amongst other things, « Le Repas de Noces de Madame Bovary », (Madame Bovary’s Wedding Breakfast.) On Monday morning I rang to enquire and managed to reserve two of the only six remaining tickets; 1 o’clock on Monday 14 August, 30 euros per person. More than that we don’t know, except that we have to book for at least two activities, so when N comes back tomorrow will find something else - not difficult, they all look interesting - and go and collect the tickets on Thursday. (When in Britain in June I read an article in a magazine in which the interviewee was asked which literary meal she would most like to have been at. Her answer was Ratty’s picnic in « The Wind in the Willows »; good, we have even tried to reproduce it, not easy with ingredients from ASDA, but I think Emma Bovary’s Wedding Breakfast will be just that bit better.) Have got out my copy ready to re-read the relevant excerpt.
It was odd to have Sunday lunch indoors in the dining room, for the first time for many weeks. In the afternoon I finally began my baking and freezing programme for what N has described on the programme for the Family Music Weekend as « English Tea ». I made two fruit loaves which are now carefully wrapped and in the freezer, now getting very full. Yesterday I added about 3 dozen Fairy Cakes. In the morning N had set off for a couple of days in Saint-Denis; although he has had post forwarded here, he felt he ought to air the flat and check on the geraniums, as it is now four weeks since we were there. I thought about going, but decided there is plenty to do here! I have since frozen some excellent green beans, given the salon a very good clean, and this afternoon varnished the « telephone » chair, the one we found here in the garage and which I had expensively re-caned; now that the hall has been repapered its turn has come. At the same time I varnished the screen we found in the hayloft, ready to have the fabric put on. At the market yesterday morning I found (on the sundress stall) a pair of very good reddish-pink cotton cropped trousers for 5 euros! Weather a little chilly for them at present, but will be just the thing when it gets hot again. I sat in the garden for a bit yesterday afternoon but today is very windy, and there have been a couple of showers. This means I haven’t had to worry about the vegetables.
This morning the blacksmith came to collect the iron; he had told N it would be some time before August 15 so I was pleasantly surprised and N even more so when I phoned and told him. Unfortunately he came on his own; it looked like very heavy work and if he’d had help I would have asked them to put the heavy table in the studio back on its feet. There were three lots of things to be taken: the iron from the hayloft, the old radiators - too heavy for N even to move - the blacksmith managed somehow to lever them on to a porter’s trolley and drag them into his van - and seven old garden lamps, too old to get working again, but interestingly made by the blacksmith himself for a previous owner 15 or 20 years ago. He said he was taking it to be melted down at some sort of old iron depository at L’Aigle; he hasn’t taken any payment from us and we assume he will get some money in exchange for it there, so everybody’s happy.
Thursday 3 August 2006
Weather very overcast and chilly; I have reverted to wearing my winter dressing gown and jeans (but not at the same time.) We have harvested out first melon, the same size as the ones in the market but harder and hairier. N has put it on the table in the verandah, to ripen in the sun, he says. What sun? I said. Yesterday evening we cut and ate our first leeks, long and thin and strongly flavoured, I could smell them three rooms away. These will be excellent candidates for soup, if only there is room in the freezer and enough plastic boxes.
Saturday 5 August 2006
We have still had no news of Odile, our possible weekend guest; in any case N thought she might have meant 5th or 6th, rather than 5th and 6th. The weather has improved a little, sunny and breezy and not really cold, we were able to have breakfast in the garden thus morning, and coffee after lunch. We had a busy afternoon on Thursday; collected our tickets for the Madame Bovary lunch, plus some for an evening with Chopin and Georges Sand on Sunday 13th, from the tourist office at Beaumesnil, then on to Bernay. It was a cold, grey afternoon and miserable English families were wandering around the shops with anoraks over their holiday clothes, no doubt annoyed that they’d picked the week after the heat wave. I got some plastic lace to cover the shelves in my newly refurbished Perspex cupboard, copper cleaner for the new preserving pan and a waste bin for the studio, but was unable to find the small hand towels N now thinks necessary for the ground floor wash room, for his après jardin hand-washing. We came home via Lapeyre to collect N’s Velux blinds for the attic windows; it was unusually crowded, perhaps as it was raining everybody thought they’d go and choose a new kitchen. N fitted the blinds after tea; the smaller window just has a plain black blind but the larger one has a clear slatted option too, in case of glare from the sun during the day. Anyway, guests should now be able to sleep well in both rooms without being disturbed by the sunrise.
We have had a phone call from Nigel Palmer regarding the film N helped with, and have been offered tickets for the pre-première on Tuesday 8th at a cinema in the Champs Elysées. At first N wasn’t keen on going as he’d on only just driven back, but then agreed we ought to, and the date fits well in between our supposed guest this weekend(?) and the events at Beaumesnil next week. This time I am quite looking forward to going back; because the weather is cooler I think and because it’s always better to have a reason for going. I phoned back to say thank you to NP and accept and ask him to leave the tickets for us in the post box at Saint-Denis, but had to leave a message. I shall be happier when we have had confirmation. Currently we plan to leave here on Tuesday afternoon (after I have been to the hairdresser in the morning) and come back some time before Sunday, to be in time for our evening with F Chopin and G Sand.
Much of the rest of the time on and off we have spent fitting the fabric on the folding screen. It is an elegant dark red and gold design, and strictly plastic tablecloth material, in fact the piece left over just fits the Italian dining table and looks quite good, and could also be useful on the garden table. It has been very fiddly; we spread glue over the criss-cross slats, then pressed down the fabric and came back later to try and tuck the edges between the two pieces of outside frame all the way round. This last part was my job; I used a little tool found with the Italian sewing things which I think may have had something to do with lace-making. I then attempted to stick all the corners in; this and the tucking varied a lot - some of it worked perfectly, some was OK and some didn’t go right at all. (And I have a lot of glue on my fingers.) However, I have done as much as can be done and it looks fine from a distance; currently it is standing in the grande pièce on the opposite wall from the bookshelves.
This amazingly really was the last big indoor job to be done; there will be plenty to do outside with the shutters, plaster and outhouses, and obviously eventually more indoor decorating, but this is the end of Our List! This afternoon we have been re-doing a few annoying jobs; a curtain tie-back hook needed replacing in the Italian bedroom, and the wooden shelf over the Perspex cupboards has been slightly wonky ever since it was put up several months ago. It has now been straightened, and the shelves covered with the leftover plastic lace, matching the cupboard underneath.
Any left over time, thought and energy goes towards arranging the Family Visit and Music weekend; I have set up documents for menus and room allocation, and am continuing Baking for Freezing and Bedding Organisation. N brought back about a dozen little folding chairs from Saint-Denis and has arranged them as « an orchestra » in the studio, although the acoustic has not been tested yet, and in any case he hopes to play some of the music in the salon, where we know the acoustic is good, and there is a lot of good space and those of us working in the kitchen will be able to hear! Family and guests and have all been sent maps, timetables, lists of music and an agenda.
Sunday 6 August 2006
Still no sign of our guest; it’s been a funny kind of weekend, lots of hanging about wondering how many we’ll be for the next meal. On Friday I made Blanquette de Veau for the first time ever; I think it’s the first time ever I’ve been able to buy stewing veal, from the local butcher. It turned out as it should and N claimed it was very good, but I’m not sure I liked it. While researching recipes for English Cakes, I found a hand-written recipe for an American Rhubarb Cake; I have no idea whose the writing is or who gave it to me when, but it’s just what we need at the moment - I made it and it’s excellent. Lots of brown sugar and cinnamon, moist and a bit like Eve’s Pudding, in fact more of a pudding than a cake. I have also made Stuffed Peppers with the first two of our own green peppers, and today a new recipe I found (in an old book; must read it more carefully!) for a wonderful Spinach and Orange Soup, although there still seems to be just as much spinach in the garden. After all these dishes N has said what a pity Odile isn’t here, she has really missed something. I noticed again at the vegetable stall on Friday how much more aware I am of seasonal produce here than in Britain; in the spring there were asparagus and the early garriguette strawberries everywhere, now even the later strawberries are over, together with cherries and raspberries, and on Friday there were several varieties of different coloured plums, some of which don’t exist in Britain, and for the last week or so there have been plentiful supplies of melons. Our first melon is still ripening, it is put out in the sun every day, like a baby in a pram, meanwhile we have counted sixteen others of varying sizes in the melon bed!
Today N has scraped a lot of moss off the top of the tiled wall which separates the vegetable garden from the road behind, (molto mosso, he said) one of the things he wanted do as soon as we got here, but says he was glad he left it until now as after the heat it is very dry and easy to remove. On the garden side of the wall, under the tiled overhang, there are now several bunches of onions drying and a large net bag of shallots. This afternoon I have made Coffee Ice Cream from a recipe I had years ago - hoping it will be even better with Norman farm cream - we shall taste it this evening and then perhaps make some more for guests. I have also cleaned my new copper preserving pan with the cleaner bought at Monsieur Bricolage, where there is a vast array of cleaning products.
Monday 7 August 2006
Ice cream very good, will make more next week. Still no news from Odile, having expected a phone call or sudden arrival all the weekend. This morning I cycled with bottles to the bottle bank then on to the cycle repair shop for the first time, to get a pump, not only for my bike which is beginning to need it, but also for the wheelbarrow and for a small child’s bike which was here in the garage when we arrived. When I have looked in the cycle repair shop from time to time I have seen what looked like a very disagreeable woman, lots of fishing tackle and notices about fishing permits, and more recently a very pretty tabby cat asleep in a corner of the shop window on a pile of pedals and spanners. I disturbed the cat while parking my bike against the window, but am pleased to report that the woman was very nice indeed (perhaps dealing with disagreeable customers?) and that there are also cages of budgies and canaries inside, and that I bought a pump which she assured me would fit any kind of bicycle, and the wheelbarrow. We have yet to try it. Outside the boulangerie I met Marie-Antoinette, whom I have not seen for some while as she has been on holiday in the Vendée with her family. We discussed the heat wave, the building next to her house, holidays, and - once more - how dirty this house was when it belonged to Mme V. At the market I managed to find another pair of 5 euro trousers in the same style and size as last week, but black.
At lunchtime we finally had a phone call from N Palmer, who had been away all weekend; he will come to the film with us tomorrow evening, and has invited us to dinner on Wednesday evening. We will set off after lunch tomorrow (Tuesday) as planned and come back on Thursday afternoon, which will hopefully give me time to do a bit of shopping for things unobtainable here. I tried to get an appointment to have my eyebrows done, but they were booked up until the 18th! Obviously the female population of Saint-Denis is getting ready for holidays.
This morning I took the Italian bedspread from the new single bed in the attic to send for dry cleaning, but they were on holiday until the 23rd, by which time our guests will be here. I hung it on the washing line to blow the dust out and N suggested we put it in the washing machine. This was a mistake - later I noticed the machine had stopped completely, no red light, so we opened the door and took out the very heavy bedspread and lots of filthy water (bedspread went back on washing line again) and then managed to pull out the machine from the new kitchen cupboards and N heroically succeeded in putting a new fuse in the (British) plug. Great relief all round, I’m sure it will/would be very difficult to try and find someone to repair it here.
