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.
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 9:28 AM 
