Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Friday 1 December 2006
The lunch party with M and Mme P last Saturday was a great success. I cooked poule au pot with vegetables from the garden, followed by the caramelised apple cake (tested with M the week before) and preceded by a dish N and I remembered from a restaurant some years ago with five special ingredients - goat’s cheese, dried tomatoes, chives, basil and pesto. This went down very well too. They brought some beautiful flowers, admired the house and the fire, and as we hoped, were able to tell us a lot about the local area and its inhabitants, having seemingly lived here all their lives, Monsieur P having taken over the family business. He said he admired people like us, who packed up and settled in a completely different country speaking different languages, and that we were very « branché » with the Internet; he didn‘t even have a mobile phone. I assured him we didn‘t have mobile phones either. When N mentioned his local history project they said they knew the young historian he had contacted (Monsieur P had been at school with his father) and told us where he lived, not as far away as we thought. We are still waiting for him to make contact. Monsieur P also promised to bring round a copy of a plan of the old Abbey; although N has since bought some ancient books in the post containing such plans and thinks it may well be a copy of one of these. We asked them about the film « Le Trou Normand » too, and N invited them to come round and see it. (It has since arrived in the post, but we think we will watch it on our own first.) N said that we had seen nothing of the neighbours on our right, and Monsieur P said they might be nervous and think we were part of the « haute bourgeoisie anglaise », which amused me but N said later it would have been better to be thought part of the « petite noblesse…. » When they left there was much kissing on both cheeks, which I think is always a mark of having arrived in France.
(The literal meaning of le trou normand is « the Norman hole » , and it refers to the practice of drinking a glass of Calvados - strong Norman apple liqueur - in the middle of a large meal. In the film it is the name of a restaurant, and it is also the name of a newly refurbished guest-house in La Vieille-Lyre, although whether the film was named after a local restaurant or vice versa, who can tell.)
Our new fruit trees arrived on Saturday too, delivered by our « regular » man from the garden centre and have since been planted by N; the apricot in the vegetable garden next to the peach tree on the sunny summer wall, and the two others on the grass near the cherry tree and the apple tree, to make a sort of orchard area, N says. When the weather improved slightly I picked up two and a half baskets full of the last windfall apples and put them all in the compost bin; but we still have a tableful in the verandah and the best specimens in the first outhouse, plus quite a lot in the freezer. Those on the table are decreasing slightly as I make apple cakes and puddings. I have just made mincemeat for the first time ever (using up a few apples) as I realised that if we wanted mince pies for Christmas this was the only way I was going to get any. I found a reliable recipe in the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book - very like Christmas pudding but without all the steaming - and fortunately had asked M to bring more suet, one thing I cannot buy here.
After Monsieur P and his wife had left I realised we had got to the end of a long line of autumn guests, both those who actually came and those who never turned up. We have no more projected visitors until April, although several people said they would like to come then, or « at Easter » or « in the spring ». The only ones who have booked dates so far are N’s sister and husband.
On Monday I managed at last to retrieve my bicycle from the bicycle shop (where incidentally Monsieur P’s brother was apprenticed, it is a small world here) after variously having been away in Paris, had M visiting, rain and finding the shop unusually shut in the middle of one morning. I said to the proprietress that I thought the only hope of finding tyres and tubes to fit was in Cambridge market where I bought the bike, probably on a visit next spring, when I would ask her kindly to fit them. I had a hard job getting her to accept 10 euros for all her trouble (she reassembled the bike so that I could walk it home) but in the end she agreed it could be « on account » for the eventual fitting. As I came out of the shop a crocodile of small children walked past on their way back to the village school, and there were various murmurings of « Bonjour Madame » and « Regarde le vélo! »
I have also been chatting to our local postman. At this time of the year postmen traditionally come with decorated calendars or almanacs for which they ask a little money, a sort of organised Christmas box really. I expect the dustmen will come too. Anyway, I asked the postman in and chose the nicest of his calendars and we chatted about the local area - he lives near Broglie - and he suggested places to visit. It’s good to get to know him, as we seem to be having so many things delivered at the moment, and a lot easier than trying to talk to him through his crash helmet (he comes on a post office motor bike.) The calendar is full of useful information like street maps of Evreux and Rouen, and the times of high tides at Le Havre…..
Today in the village there is the outside of a living crèche or stable outside the church, but Mary & Joseph etc have not arrived so far. I seem to remember seeing this last year when we arrived on 20 December. There are also two large Christmas trees either side of the church doors, and the beginnings of a Christmas display in the boulangerie. The florist is closing down (I got a chrysanthemum with 20% off) and opening in a week or so under new management.
I am making great progress with the life of George Sand - almost two thirds of the way though this volume - and have arrived at 1812, and am pleased to have caught up with where I was with « War and Peace », although from the point of view of the other side. Although only eight years old at the time, she writes a lot about what she heard the grown-ups saying; no-one seemed to realise that the weather would be so bad in Moscow or to doubt for a minute that the Russian campaign could fail or that it was anything other than a step towards the conquest of Asia and then the world.
N has gone back to Paris for a few days to play quartets and buy Christmas presents ready for posting; I decided to stay as the house has been so cold the last twice I’ve come back, and it saves trying to decide what food to take back and what to leave, which coat to take and so on. This morning I had a phone call from Laurent, the local historian from La Vieille-Lyre, and have invited him to tea on Sunday. I told him N was in Paris at the moment but coming back tomorrow, which I hope made him sound very important and busy. I have been catching up with various sewing jobs and ironing, cooking the last of the green peppers from the garden for a warm salad and making goulash for Saturday evening.
Sunday 3 December 2006
N arrived back safely yesterday and in the afternoon we drove out to Broglie, to try and pick up something he had ordered by Internet, to do with the history of La Neuve-Lyre. It was a strange system, as it was supposed to have been delivered to the paper shop in Broglie for us to collect; at first the proprietress claimed she had nothing for that name, but eventually found it under a pile of larger parcels. When N opened it at home it turned out to be something quite different for someone of another name! He is still trying to sort it all out by e-mail. It meant we had a nice little walk round Broglie, where I had only ever passed through - N had been there the night Clare and family had got lost on our way here and had to be rescued. We liked what we saw of the centre, an interesting church with a mixture of different styles and a vet’s which I remembered seeing the first time we drove through, arranged like a shop with blue cats and dogs painted above the window. We came to the conclusion that if we ever have a cat - a subject raised from time to time - that this would probably be our local vet. As we left I picked up a leaflet about a Christmas market next Saturday.
On the way home, as it had stopped raining, we decided to stop and visit La Vieille-Lyre at last, having gone that way so many times, but now feeling we knew it better (especially N) from the old maps of the Abbey. The current church, on a hill in the centre of the village, is a relic from the Abbey and the guesthouse, or gîte, « Le Trou Normand » is a building which originally formed part of the Abbey. The church was unfortunately locked, but we spent a long time looking at the graveyard surrounding it in English fashion (French cemeteries are usually outside the town or village) As it is on a hill, all the pots of chrysanthemums carefully and respectfully laid on 1 November had all blown over sideways and were rolling about in the wind. We looked at the guesthouse - on the main road through the village at right angles to the church - and when we went back to the car found two locals looking at it, as we had inadvertently blocked an exit. N asked them if they knew anything about the Abbey; not much, but they laughed when he said we still couldn’t understand why La Vieille-Lyre surrounded La Neuve-Lyre like a collar. They also told us that the keys to the church were with the people at the house next to the Mairie. Another time, we said.
Once home and in the warm with tea and cake we watched the DVD of the film « Le Trou Normand » . The principal role played by the actor Bourvil was a Norman Wisdom kind of character, complete with too-short trousers, and Brigitte Bardot made a convincing start to her career. What we liked best though was that most of the action took place where we had been that afternoon, but 50 years ago - in front La Vieille-Lyre church and Le Trou Normand guesthouse. There were also recognisable scenes shot further down our street too, when there were obviously more shops than there are now.
On Sunday afternoon Laurent, the young local historian came to tea. He was pleased that we had lit the fire for him, he said, and appreciated the tea and cake. We learned a lot from him during the course of the afternoon, and felt that he was quite the most interesting and intelligent person we had met since we moved here! (Hope he thinks the same about us too.)
N asked him all about his history of the two Lyre villages, which is to be published as a book next year, but at the moment is in the form of a Blog, and about what he knew about the Abbey and why the two villages split in the 13th century. It seems that La Neuve-Lyre broke away as it was too far to keep going to La Vieille-Lyre church for baptisms and so on; and that La Vieille-Lyre remained an agricultural community whereas La Neuve-Lyre was more commercial. (It is exactly the same today; there is not single shop in La Vieille-Lyre, but here there are half a dozen plus the Post Office and the market.) He also said that the industry in La Neuve-Lyre was based around iron, which is still the case today as this is one of the few villages which still has a blacksmith and the connection with iron is carried on by the Quincaillerie selling nails and other metals. (N thought this a bit far-fetched, but I liked it as I remembered buying nails there by the 100 grams in a twist of paper.) In answer to my question, Laurent was able to tell me that the guesthouse Le Trou Normand had taken its name from the film; before 1952 as an inn it had had various names, including L’Hotel de France, but since the film has always been Le Trou Normand.
He also told us about the twinning of La Vieille-Lyre with a little village near Hereford, as there are links between the two parishes going back several centuries. The twinning is a recent event however, the initiative of the English village, but he is involved with the establishing of it. (I had heard about this in September when N was in Switzerland; at the hairdressers I had remarked that it wasn’t very busy and she told me that lots of ladies were having their hair done the week after prior to the arrival of the twinning committee from the English village!) We said we would be interested in getting involved if there was anything we could do; translating, interpreting or even having people to stay, but gathered it was more a La Vieille-Lyre venture than a La Neuve-Lyre one.
Laurent had looked up N’s publications on the Internet, which was flattering, and N offered him any help he might need with Old French or with Latin, neither of which he knew, or English either. He asked - as many people have - what made us come to live in La Neuve-Lyre, and we said, as always, The House. N asked him if he would like a guided tour, on which he seemed very keen; this surprised me as young people are not usually interested in houses. He was impressed by the two staircases and even more so by the little door in N’s attic study which opens into another bedroom, I suppose it does look as though it only leads to a small cupboard. We told him about all the help we had had from Monsieur P (whom he knows via his father) and Monsieur A who is their neighbour.
Wednesday 6 December 2006
There are now even more Christmas decorations in the village; the Crèche is finished and the hairdressers looks beautiful and the traiteur’s shop bright with Father Christmases and lights. The weather continues mostly mild occasional windy wet days, but still really more suitable for October/November than December. There are even a few primroses in the garden!
The lunch party with M and Mme P last Saturday was a great success. I cooked poule au pot with vegetables from the garden, followed by the caramelised apple cake (tested with M the week before) and preceded by a dish N and I remembered from a restaurant some years ago with five special ingredients - goat’s cheese, dried tomatoes, chives, basil and pesto. This went down very well too. They brought some beautiful flowers, admired the house and the fire, and as we hoped, were able to tell us a lot about the local area and its inhabitants, having seemingly lived here all their lives, Monsieur P having taken over the family business. He said he admired people like us, who packed up and settled in a completely different country speaking different languages, and that we were very « branché » with the Internet; he didn‘t even have a mobile phone. I assured him we didn‘t have mobile phones either. When N mentioned his local history project they said they knew the young historian he had contacted (Monsieur P had been at school with his father) and told us where he lived, not as far away as we thought. We are still waiting for him to make contact. Monsieur P also promised to bring round a copy of a plan of the old Abbey; although N has since bought some ancient books in the post containing such plans and thinks it may well be a copy of one of these. We asked them about the film « Le Trou Normand » too, and N invited them to come round and see it. (It has since arrived in the post, but we think we will watch it on our own first.) N said that we had seen nothing of the neighbours on our right, and Monsieur P said they might be nervous and think we were part of the « haute bourgeoisie anglaise », which amused me but N said later it would have been better to be thought part of the « petite noblesse…. » When they left there was much kissing on both cheeks, which I think is always a mark of having arrived in France.
(The literal meaning of le trou normand is « the Norman hole » , and it refers to the practice of drinking a glass of Calvados - strong Norman apple liqueur - in the middle of a large meal. In the film it is the name of a restaurant, and it is also the name of a newly refurbished guest-house in La Vieille-Lyre, although whether the film was named after a local restaurant or vice versa, who can tell.)
Our new fruit trees arrived on Saturday too, delivered by our « regular » man from the garden centre and have since been planted by N; the apricot in the vegetable garden next to the peach tree on the sunny summer wall, and the two others on the grass near the cherry tree and the apple tree, to make a sort of orchard area, N says. When the weather improved slightly I picked up two and a half baskets full of the last windfall apples and put them all in the compost bin; but we still have a tableful in the verandah and the best specimens in the first outhouse, plus quite a lot in the freezer. Those on the table are decreasing slightly as I make apple cakes and puddings. I have just made mincemeat for the first time ever (using up a few apples) as I realised that if we wanted mince pies for Christmas this was the only way I was going to get any. I found a reliable recipe in the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book - very like Christmas pudding but without all the steaming - and fortunately had asked M to bring more suet, one thing I cannot buy here.
After Monsieur P and his wife had left I realised we had got to the end of a long line of autumn guests, both those who actually came and those who never turned up. We have no more projected visitors until April, although several people said they would like to come then, or « at Easter » or « in the spring ». The only ones who have booked dates so far are N’s sister and husband.
On Monday I managed at last to retrieve my bicycle from the bicycle shop (where incidentally Monsieur P’s brother was apprenticed, it is a small world here) after variously having been away in Paris, had M visiting, rain and finding the shop unusually shut in the middle of one morning. I said to the proprietress that I thought the only hope of finding tyres and tubes to fit was in Cambridge market where I bought the bike, probably on a visit next spring, when I would ask her kindly to fit them. I had a hard job getting her to accept 10 euros for all her trouble (she reassembled the bike so that I could walk it home) but in the end she agreed it could be « on account » for the eventual fitting. As I came out of the shop a crocodile of small children walked past on their way back to the village school, and there were various murmurings of « Bonjour Madame » and « Regarde le vélo! »
I have also been chatting to our local postman. At this time of the year postmen traditionally come with decorated calendars or almanacs for which they ask a little money, a sort of organised Christmas box really. I expect the dustmen will come too. Anyway, I asked the postman in and chose the nicest of his calendars and we chatted about the local area - he lives near Broglie - and he suggested places to visit. It’s good to get to know him, as we seem to be having so many things delivered at the moment, and a lot easier than trying to talk to him through his crash helmet (he comes on a post office motor bike.) The calendar is full of useful information like street maps of Evreux and Rouen, and the times of high tides at Le Havre…..
Today in the village there is the outside of a living crèche or stable outside the church, but Mary & Joseph etc have not arrived so far. I seem to remember seeing this last year when we arrived on 20 December. There are also two large Christmas trees either side of the church doors, and the beginnings of a Christmas display in the boulangerie. The florist is closing down (I got a chrysanthemum with 20% off) and opening in a week or so under new management.
I am making great progress with the life of George Sand - almost two thirds of the way though this volume - and have arrived at 1812, and am pleased to have caught up with where I was with « War and Peace », although from the point of view of the other side. Although only eight years old at the time, she writes a lot about what she heard the grown-ups saying; no-one seemed to realise that the weather would be so bad in Moscow or to doubt for a minute that the Russian campaign could fail or that it was anything other than a step towards the conquest of Asia and then the world.
N has gone back to Paris for a few days to play quartets and buy Christmas presents ready for posting; I decided to stay as the house has been so cold the last twice I’ve come back, and it saves trying to decide what food to take back and what to leave, which coat to take and so on. This morning I had a phone call from Laurent, the local historian from La Vieille-Lyre, and have invited him to tea on Sunday. I told him N was in Paris at the moment but coming back tomorrow, which I hope made him sound very important and busy. I have been catching up with various sewing jobs and ironing, cooking the last of the green peppers from the garden for a warm salad and making goulash for Saturday evening.
Sunday 3 December 2006
N arrived back safely yesterday and in the afternoon we drove out to Broglie, to try and pick up something he had ordered by Internet, to do with the history of La Neuve-Lyre. It was a strange system, as it was supposed to have been delivered to the paper shop in Broglie for us to collect; at first the proprietress claimed she had nothing for that name, but eventually found it under a pile of larger parcels. When N opened it at home it turned out to be something quite different for someone of another name! He is still trying to sort it all out by e-mail. It meant we had a nice little walk round Broglie, where I had only ever passed through - N had been there the night Clare and family had got lost on our way here and had to be rescued. We liked what we saw of the centre, an interesting church with a mixture of different styles and a vet’s which I remembered seeing the first time we drove through, arranged like a shop with blue cats and dogs painted above the window. We came to the conclusion that if we ever have a cat - a subject raised from time to time - that this would probably be our local vet. As we left I picked up a leaflet about a Christmas market next Saturday.
On the way home, as it had stopped raining, we decided to stop and visit La Vieille-Lyre at last, having gone that way so many times, but now feeling we knew it better (especially N) from the old maps of the Abbey. The current church, on a hill in the centre of the village, is a relic from the Abbey and the guesthouse, or gîte, « Le Trou Normand » is a building which originally formed part of the Abbey. The church was unfortunately locked, but we spent a long time looking at the graveyard surrounding it in English fashion (French cemeteries are usually outside the town or village) As it is on a hill, all the pots of chrysanthemums carefully and respectfully laid on 1 November had all blown over sideways and were rolling about in the wind. We looked at the guesthouse - on the main road through the village at right angles to the church - and when we went back to the car found two locals looking at it, as we had inadvertently blocked an exit. N asked them if they knew anything about the Abbey; not much, but they laughed when he said we still couldn’t understand why La Vieille-Lyre surrounded La Neuve-Lyre like a collar. They also told us that the keys to the church were with the people at the house next to the Mairie. Another time, we said.
Once home and in the warm with tea and cake we watched the DVD of the film « Le Trou Normand » . The principal role played by the actor Bourvil was a Norman Wisdom kind of character, complete with too-short trousers, and Brigitte Bardot made a convincing start to her career. What we liked best though was that most of the action took place where we had been that afternoon, but 50 years ago - in front La Vieille-Lyre church and Le Trou Normand guesthouse. There were also recognisable scenes shot further down our street too, when there were obviously more shops than there are now.
On Sunday afternoon Laurent, the young local historian came to tea. He was pleased that we had lit the fire for him, he said, and appreciated the tea and cake. We learned a lot from him during the course of the afternoon, and felt that he was quite the most interesting and intelligent person we had met since we moved here! (Hope he thinks the same about us too.)
N asked him all about his history of the two Lyre villages, which is to be published as a book next year, but at the moment is in the form of a Blog, and about what he knew about the Abbey and why the two villages split in the 13th century. It seems that La Neuve-Lyre broke away as it was too far to keep going to La Vieille-Lyre church for baptisms and so on; and that La Vieille-Lyre remained an agricultural community whereas La Neuve-Lyre was more commercial. (It is exactly the same today; there is not single shop in La Vieille-Lyre, but here there are half a dozen plus the Post Office and the market.) He also said that the industry in La Neuve-Lyre was based around iron, which is still the case today as this is one of the few villages which still has a blacksmith and the connection with iron is carried on by the Quincaillerie selling nails and other metals. (N thought this a bit far-fetched, but I liked it as I remembered buying nails there by the 100 grams in a twist of paper.) In answer to my question, Laurent was able to tell me that the guesthouse Le Trou Normand had taken its name from the film; before 1952 as an inn it had had various names, including L’Hotel de France, but since the film has always been Le Trou Normand.
He also told us about the twinning of La Vieille-Lyre with a little village near Hereford, as there are links between the two parishes going back several centuries. The twinning is a recent event however, the initiative of the English village, but he is involved with the establishing of it. (I had heard about this in September when N was in Switzerland; at the hairdressers I had remarked that it wasn’t very busy and she told me that lots of ladies were having their hair done the week after prior to the arrival of the twinning committee from the English village!) We said we would be interested in getting involved if there was anything we could do; translating, interpreting or even having people to stay, but gathered it was more a La Vieille-Lyre venture than a La Neuve-Lyre one.
Laurent had looked up N’s publications on the Internet, which was flattering, and N offered him any help he might need with Old French or with Latin, neither of which he knew, or English either. He asked - as many people have - what made us come to live in La Neuve-Lyre, and we said, as always, The House. N asked him if he would like a guided tour, on which he seemed very keen; this surprised me as young people are not usually interested in houses. He was impressed by the two staircases and even more so by the little door in N’s attic study which opens into another bedroom, I suppose it does look as though it only leads to a small cupboard. We told him about all the help we had had from Monsieur P (whom he knows via his father) and Monsieur A who is their neighbour.
Wednesday 6 December 2006
There are now even more Christmas decorations in the village; the Crèche is finished and the hairdressers looks beautiful and the traiteur’s shop bright with Father Christmases and lights. The weather continues mostly mild occasional windy wet days, but still really more suitable for October/November than December. There are even a few primroses in the garden!
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 6:33 AM 
