Chez Katherine

Tuesday 25 September 2007
The weekend of 15 & 16 September - when Madeleine was with us - was the weekend of the Journées du Patrimoine; when historical buildings are open to the public and when last year I had a ride in an antique bus and a tour round the Passages Couverts. This year there seemed nothing worth looking at anywhere near us in Normandy, so I think in future we must try to be in Paris - perhaps with guests - for the third weekend in September.
Last Wednesday (19 September) we set off from Normandy for Saint-Denis in the afternoon. When N was last there and I was in the UK, he bought a new digital set-top box for the TV, which I found very difficult to get used to, especially as it kept giving messages in German. (Whether it was a German box, or whether N had set it like that to get us in training for Vienna, I’m not sure. Anyway, by the time we left, we were both getting used to it.) In the evening we watched a very good German programme on the life and career of Maria Callas; especially interesting from the point of view of fashion.
The next day - N's birthday - the chimney sweep duly arrived at 9.00 a.m. and did his stuff; this involved moving the oven and various other things, so much cleaning, sorting and tidying was done afterwards. I went Local Shopping in Saint-Denis, and visited a closing down sale in the shop where I had bought very good pillows for LNL; they didn’t have any more, only lots of bedding, curtains and towels which we don’t need. Also some looking in shoe shops. N had checked the central heating and found a problem with time switch and pump, but managed to contact his Portuguese plumber, the one who had originally installed it all but who had proved very elusive when he was needed the winter before last.
We had a quiet afternoon and a large birthday tea before setting off to Opera Bastille by metro in the evening, to see Elisir d‘Amore by Donizetti, which I thought was excellent, but I think N found a little lowbrow. I don’t usually care for opera or theatre productions in a different time from the original, but this performance was set in Italy in the 1950’s (as opposed to the 1840’s) and it worked very well; complete with Vespas, bicycles and the Doctor arriving in a van, and even a little dog who ran across the stage twice! (We waited for him at the curtain call, but he must have gone home early.) The singing was very good too, (not the dog) in particular the tenor making his début at Bastille in the role originally taken by Pavarotti, and receiving much applause and Bravos! for « Una Furtiva Lagrima. »
On Friday morning I went to Saint-Denis market to buy myself some cheap Italian slippers as a replacement for those originally bought in Aulla two years ago, while N waited in for the Portuguese plumber who was there fixing the heating when I returned.
After lunch we set off into Paris to visit the Louvre; a trip I had wanted to make since January when I packed up a reproduction of Souvenir de Mortefontaine by Corot, at my mother’s house which was delivered to LNL along with everything else by Steve & Phil in April, as I knew the original painting was in the Louvre. First of all we took the RER train to Châtelet and called in at the Rue de Rivoli C & A for a suit for N - he had been observing those worn at the Opera the night before, and decided he need a new one. We managed to find a good inexpensive suit in light green cord, and then walked down to the Louvre. There were many Irish rugby supporters in Paris, and we realised that there must be a France/Ireland match that evening. Several of them were using their pre-match time wisely by visiting the Louvre! After much looking at plans and walking along corridors and up and down stairs we eventually found Souvenir de Mortefontaine; small French 19th century paintings not in the same part of the Louvre as large French 19th century paintings, hence the difficulty.
We looked at other paintings - the coronation of Napoleon and the Wreck of the Medusa, and bought postcards, then walked along to shops near the Bourse so that N could buy more stamp albums, and finally stopped for drinks at a café next door. We observed the new public hire bicycles over the road having seen lots about them on the news; the system was inaugurated in July, but this was the first time we had seen it. Bicycles are available at hundreds of depots around Paris, and when equipped with a card, one just takes a bike, rides it round as necessary and leaves it at another depot.
On the metro on the way home we saw more Irish supporters, and I managed to read on the back of one of their shirts that the match was indeed at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. Once home we found that neither of us had our door-keys - N’s had mysteriously disappeared somehow during the afternoon, and when I couldn’t find mine in my bag thought I must have left them in the (different) jacket I’d worn that morning, not worrying when we went out because I knew he had his.
N fetched the gardienne and a large ladder; the first floor dining room window was going to have to be broken, and he had already arranged with her to contact the useful (also Portuguese) Ursulines maintenance man to mend it. Several neighbours came to see what was going on, and then the gardienne’s husband arrived and offered to go up the ladder and break the window. N said later perhaps they thought he was too old to go up ladders.
Once the window was broken the gardienne’s husband still needed keys to unlock the two front doors; I told him mine should be in my pocket, but they weren’t, so N told him where to find the spare set; the doors were unlocked and were able to get in and clear up all the broken glass. Only then when I tipped my bag upside down on the floor did I find my keys at the bottom of it - I have since bought a largish key ring, and offered to pay the broken window bill, which we still haven’t received. N was busy trying to phone C & A to see if his keys had got lost when he was trying on suits; it was extremely difficult to find their phone number, and when we did, no satisfactory reply. He consoled himself with the fact that they had a disc attached, courtesy of a bank scheme, which if found and posted in any post box, should allow the keys to find their way back to him.
The TV news told us more about the rugby match; France needed to win to reach semi-final. On Saturday morning N heard a radio bulletin which said they had won, and when I went out into Saint-Denis there seemed to be a positive atmosphere about. I felt sorry for the nice Irish supporters we had seen outside Paddy’s Bar on our way home. N was waiting in for the Portuguese maintenance man to mend broken window, and when I came home he still hadn‘t arrived, so in the afternoon I decided to go out to Versailles.
I had heard a lot recently on France Musique about a series of Baroque Music concerts to be held in and around the château and got more details from useful free music paper handed out at the opera and then consulted the website I found in it. I have a soft spot for the town and château of Versailles, as nearly 40 years ago I spent six weeks there; before, during and after May 1968. I last visited it about seven years ago, while staying in Saint-Denis.
There were concerts going on most of the day, but first of all I had promised N that I would call in at C & A to see if his keys had been found. The lost property department was very thorough, but there were no keys looking remotely like his, so I set off for Versailles via metro and bus. The weather was getting warmer and warmer.
The bus - which should have taken me direct to the château - was only a "service partiel", and went through Sèvres and other pretty suburbs. I and all the rest of the passengers walked rest of way towards the château, and saw why the road was closed; there was a deafening noise like motor racing, and it turned out to be a sort of rally demonstrating a new type of car we had seen on television, which reacted automatically to obstacles in the road. Very important and useful, but very loud and making it very hard to get to the music at the château.
I then had to make my way through a « rugby village »; lots of people sitting around drinking, shouting and watching a large screen and by the time I eventually reached the gates of the château, not only was it very hot indeed, but much later than I’d intended, and very crowded and noisy with the aforementioned rally, tourist buses, crowds of people and souvenir sellers. I managed to see the France Musique stand and the FNAC stand, and indeed to hear a little Baroque Music over loudspeakers, but it was by then 3.15, the next concert was at 5.00 and I didn‘t think I wanted to hang around all that time in the heat and noise. N said later why didn’t I sit in the gardens with an ice cream; I wasn‘t sure I even wanted to get that far, and in any case the 5.00 concert was ballet, the really good ones had been around midday.
When I’d last been to Versailles, I’d found and come back by a station to the right on coming out of the château, but there was no sign of this in all the road chaos, so I went back down the Avenue towards a sign I’d seen to the left. I walked for ages in the hot sun all through a shopping area and a market and finally found the station, Versailles Rive Droite, very spacious and elegant. I waited 10 minutes or so for train into the Gare Saint Lazare; it was a large comfortable train, and there were many pretty stations along the line, a much better class of suburbs here in the west of Paris than around Saint-Denis in the north. I then realised I knew this line from two different occasions in the past; during my stay at Versailles in 1968 the local station had been Montreuil - the next stop after Versailles RD - and then further along the line the journey between Asnières and La Défense via Courbevoie had been part of my route to work in Neuilly when I lived in Asnières in 1974.
Arriving at Saint Lazare from Versailles was a little like arriving from Normandy, but further along the station at the suburban end. I decided while so near the shops I would make the most of an abortive day out by continuing looking for shoes; while in Saint-Denis I had been trying to find something to replace a pair of black low-heeled very comfortable « shopping and sightseeing » shoes. I tried Au Printemps where there were far too many customers and designer prices, then stopped off at the Forum des Halles on my way home on the RER. I remembered a very large shoe shop full of variety, called San Marina; I successfully found it and, finally, a pair of suitable shoes, thinking that as were going back to LNL the next day this would be last time I‘d be shopping in Paris for some time.
I got home and found N still with the broken window, and the maintenance man now not coming until Monday, (he had offered to come the next day, but N had said no, he didn‘t want to bring him out on a Sunday) so we were now not leaving before Monday!
This meant we now had a completely free Sunday not waiting in for anybody, and as the weather was still warm and sunny, although a little cloudier than Saturday, we decided to go into Paris for lunch.
We took the RER to Châtelet, had a long walk round the Rue de Rivoli again, towards the river and the Ile de la Cité, and ended up with a lovely lunch at Bertillon, a café specialising in ice creams, also serving light lunches, where we sat outside. (This was where I’d had tea with Bill and his friend Tony, when we’d had a day in Paris last year.) N had an omelette, I had wonderful Salade Creole, (fish, fruit and vegetables all mixed together, like having all three courses at once) then we had delicious ices. The café was on a crowded corner just by the river, so there was a lot to look at, together with music from accordions over the road. We thoroughly enjoyed it all, and thought we ought to do this sort of thing more - so often when we come to Paris N is busy dealing with things in his study and not inclined to go out, whereas I feel there is so much to see and experience! I also realised during the meal that I have now been living in France for exactly two years, so we made it a kind of retrospective celebration lunch. Afterwards we walked around Notre Dame where there were large queues waiting to get in, and then down the main streets of Ile de la Cité, through the flower market, looking at plants, birds and animals and taking photos, and then back to Châtelet and home on the RER.
Once home, N got back to sorting and valuing his stamps again, stopping to tell me from time to time that various farthing stamps from Malta and Belize were now worth several pounds, while I checked my e-mails and discovered that our services would not be required this winter for looking after cats in Tuscany after all. At least it makes forward planning easier!

Wednesday 12 September 2007
Over recent months I have enjoyed my free subscription to The London Review of Books, but had decided not to take out a subscription of my own as there always seemed to be so many other things I either wanted to read or felt I should read. So I threw the first two reduced subscription offers into the waste paper basket, before finding myself saying more than once to friends and family last week that I had read so many interesting articles in the LRB lately! Happily, I received a third offer, and quickly sent off my cheque, explaining all of the above. It is certainly very useful to read while travelling - even on the metro - as unlike a book it takes up virtually no room in my bag.
Apart from the articles and reviews, I enjoy the very entertaining small ads at the back and while reading my last free edition in bed this morning, came across one offering free accommodation in northern Tuscany during various winter months in return for looking after some cats. N and I agreed that this was just what we needed - as we currently have neither a house in Tuscany nor a cat - so I have sent off an e-mail asking for more information.
The weather continues bright and sunny, and is set to stay that way for a few more days, which is just as well as daughter Madeleine is arriving on Saturday for a short stay; we shall go on to Paris after she has left on Tuesday. We are still managing to have lunch in the garden on most days, while still appreciating the heating night and morning. No response from Monsieur A to my request for a service for the boiler, but Monsieur B the TV man is coming on Friday afternoon.
N is still busy in the second outhouse; he has temporarily left off plastering the walls in favour of repairing the door (says he likes being a carpenter more than a plasterer) which needs the whole bottom section replacing, as it was rotten. The rotten part - a replacement too - had the remains of a cat or dog hole in it. He has made several trips to Bricomarché at Conches to get more wood, plaster, glue, nails, and also more paintbrushes to replace those I finished off on Sunday.
Today I shall make Poule au Pot, as all the requisite vegetables - potatoes, carrots, turnips, shallots and leeks - are now available in the garden.
Thursday 13 September 2007
Poule au Pot was good, apart from some strange thickening agent which gave it the appearance of semolina. We ate the remaining sauce and vegetables for lunch in the garden today, and afterwards sat out in our chairs until it got too hot! Why it can’t have been like this in the summer proper, I don’t know. The weather reminded me of two years ago, just before I left Cambridge when it was warm like this, and I remember going home for lunch in the garden very briefly when N was there, before going off for a final visit to the solicitor.
This morning N took down (almost) all the various onions and shallots from where they had been drying in the sun, and we sat at the little garden table and rubbed off all the dry skins and long dry shoots and put them in various flat baskets to store in the outhouse. There are more than last year and I don’t think we’ll need to buy any more for a long time. Must think about making onion soup too, to use our special « Gratinée » dishes. I took photos of the two baskets; the square one looked especially decorative, with onions of four different sizes and colours. It was a very pleasant rural activity, and seemed somehow particularly French to be sitting in the sun preparing onions in Normandy; N said is this how I thought living in France would be, and I had to admit I didn’t really know.
N has been thinking about taking the slightly broken red Italian garden chair to Monsieur P the carpenter to see if it can be repaired, and we have since decided we should ask him to replace the little broken window frame in the second outhouse and (considerably more expensive) replace the door to the verandah. The latter is really ugly and badly fitting, and since we have improved so many other aspects of the verandah it just looks worse and worse.
Tuesday 18 September 2007
Friday afternoon was very eventful. We were expecting Monsieur B the TV man; N was busy plastering in the outhouse and I made an apple cake ready for our guest the next day. This left only one egg, so I decided to go to the traiteur to get some more in time for Saturday breakfast, and at the same time to see whether the Quincaillerie stocked the salt tablets we need for our water purifier. These are like giant moth balls, and we had just finished up the two sacks we’d had six months ago when we had the purifier installed.
They had some of different brand, and I said that was fine, we would come and get them one day in the car (they are very heavy) but the chap said as it wasn’t far he would bring them. I paid and we both set off with the shop wheelbarrow; I said I needed to stop at the traiteur on the way, and he said he would take the receipt (to some depot down an alley!) and see me outside the traiteur in five minutes. I got my eggs and waited, and eventually he showed up with the sacks in his barrow, and then went off down the road at amazing pace, with me trying to keep up. He brought them all the way round to the verandah door, and then set off again with his empty barrow - I wondered if I should have given him a tip. N helped me get them into the boiler room and we both sat down in the garden chairs in the sunshine for a rest, and although it was still early I made some tea.
While we were sitting there drinking it we heard strange gurgling noises from the drain; the dishwasher was empting itself after my baking and under the grating it seemed to be blocked just as it had been last year. N said perhaps we shouldn’t open the trap to inspect things just as Monsieur B was expected with a large TV set, as he could easily fall in! Monsieur B then arrived with our set and N took him round to the grande pièce (he refused a cup of tea) and after a few minutes he came out again still with the same set - apparently it had worked fine in his workshop, but once chez nous again still had the same problem - the black band at the top and bottom of the screen. So he took it away again with many apologies, and we still have his large screen TV set! (Which I think is much better.)
N then opened the trap on the terrace to inspect the drain underneath; there was indeed a blockage and the pit seemed to be full of some kind of gunge which he removed with a spade into several of the (very convenient) plastic cement pots. This seemed a little disappointing given our expensive water purifying treatment.
This went on and off all weekend; the blockage seemed to be further along under the lawn in front of the « gardener‘s door ». Madeleine arrived on Saturday afternoon by a later train having missed the earlier one by a minute (buying tickets slowed her down) and we eventually collected her at Bernay mid-afternoon. The sunshine wasn’t quite as good as on Thursday and Friday, but we managed tea in the garden, and tours of the potager and outhouses. Although she had been to La Neuve-Lyre twice before, she had never seen the house or garden in the summer.
We had fondue bourguignonne for dinner in the grande pièce; much appreciated by all especially M who had never had it before and was taken with the set of little sauces in jars and got some at the village shop to take home. She brought us a very fine chocolate and orange cake and a little box of chocolates from Vienna where she had been working the week before. On Sunday morning we all went to a conveniently near foire à tout at Conches, under the tall trees near the market. M bought a « Pastis 51 » glass café carafe, N bought two little mirrors: a Martini one and a pretty ornate wooden framed one, and I got two more books of Promenades en Normandie to make up our set; we already had Flaubert and Proust and I then found Maupassant and Hugo. There were all the usual bizarre items for sale - washbasins, beds, pet cages, books, coffee cups, and also some little black puppies in a box.
We hurried home to get lunch in the garden - a previously bought chicken in a bag, roast potatoes, stuffing, gravy, carrots and spinach also from the garden, and Christmas pudding! Certainly the first time any of us had eaten Christmas pudding in the garden.
(This was the third of the four puddings I made last summer; the fourth one is for next Christmas.) Afterwards we had coffee in the salon and began reading The Wind in the Willows, having finished Beowulf the week before, luckily for Madeleine. The rest of the day we spent watching TV and DVDs, more eating, drinking and sitting around. The weather forecast on Sunday evening promised rain and cloud for Monday, and I was sure we had had our last garden lunch of the season. M and I planned to go to Rouen for the day (kindly driven to and from Bernay station by N; not before I had phoned Monsieur A and explained about the urgency of the blocked drain - he said Guillaume would come at 8.00 on Tuesday morning) but it seemed quite fine as we left, so M didn’t wear a jacket and I didn’t take my umbrella.
This was a mistake - after only a few kilometres we saw stations with wet platforms and by the time we reached Rouen there was thick mist and steady rain. I hadn’t seen any rain for three weeks so for a few minutes it was almost a novelty! I bought a cheap umbrella on the grounds that the one I had used so much in Britain in May had broken. M bought a cardigan but didn’t put it on.
It was all so different from the visits in April with Steve and Phil and then with Bobbie and Guthrie. Where there had been tables and chairs in the sunshine in front of the cathedral there were only rain covered cobblestones, and people hurrying to and fro under umbrellas. We did find an excellent restaurant for lunch however on the cathedral square; an old established one where I was able to have Simone de Beauvoir’s favourite salad from 1937, and very good it was too.
We spent most of the rest of the afternoon rushing from shop to shop under our umbrellas and spending time in department stores, instead of - as I had hoped - relaxing outside pavement cafés looking at buildings and watching the people. We did manage to get most of what we had gone for though; I wanted a new largish white tea-tray which M bought me as a (very) late birthday present, together with a little brush and pan for sweeping bread crumbs off the dinner table. She got a teapot to go with her teacups, and some kitchen tins; and we both shopped in Sephora and in a very nice card shop, where I was also able to get things for N’s impending birthday.
We got the 6 o’clock train back (a nice modern one again) and N was there to meet us at Bernay in the pouring rain. His news was that he had made Coronation Chicken for dinner from yesterday’s leftovers and that Guillaume had turned up during the afternoon and started work on the drain. There was indeed a blockage further along, which might possibly entail digging a trench along the front garden as far as the road! The « gunge » under the trap was apparently normal; Guillaume said it should be emptied once a year. We thought this rather odd, but perhaps it is because it’s a very old house with old plumbing.
This morning both Guillaume and Monsieur A came early and worked on the pipes. N followed them round watching, encouraging and helping. They brought some high-powered pipe washing equipment which dislodged the blockage (due to cleaning wipes which were supposed to be flushable, but obviously weren’t) so there was no need for any trenches across the garden, at least today. They also found a broken pipe by the verandah door, which might explain why the rhododendrons never grew properly at that end, and why we have some wet patches inside on certain walls inside, and also the reason for the hitherto unexplained nasty drain smells we have from time to time. It was also discovered that the down pipe for the rain off the main roof just went straight into the ground, with no proper exit for the water.
The broken sewage pipe by the verandah door caused even nastier smells in all three bathrooms for a while, and in all the rest of the downstairs, but by the end of the morning it had been mended and all the excavated earth put back. Monsieur A had taken notes and gone away to prepare an estimate for having the rainwater from the down pipe properly channelled, and all was finished for today. This was a relief as weren’t sure whether we would be able to leave for Saint-Denis tomorrow, in time for the chimney sweep and the opera on Thursday! N is still reminding him about the replacement trap/manhole cover on the terrace and the service for the central heating.
While all this was going on Madeleine helped me clean the garden furniture and try to put it away for the winter in the studio, as the Box Office - where it went last winter - is still undergoing a makeover. It was all a great success except for the large table; even when we had taken the middle leaf out with some difficulty, the wide legs just wouldn’t go through the narrow door, so it had to go in the Box Office after all, and will just had to be moved around as necessary. The smaller « luxury garden furniture » is still on the terrace for a while, and hopefully will have been replaced by next summer. N’s new doorstep withstood yesterday’s rain well. Of course now we have put the garden furniture away, it is nice and sunny! Not really warm, but a pity it wasn’t like this yesterday.
After a quick and early lunch, Madeleine left by the 1.16 train from Conches, and we came back here for a quiet afternoon, with no-one digging up the garden, and no nasty smells. N even found time to put up the « Sonnez SVP » notice by the front gate bell; and we had tea from our new tray complete with Austrian chocolate cake.

Tuesday 4 September 2007
When we drove back to Saint-Denis on August 24 we had not been there for a long time, about two and a half months; not since the day we had left for Simone’s at Le Mans in a such a hurry in the middle of June. In Saint-Denis itself we found preparations going on for the Rugby World Cup - posters, marquees, new shops etc; and in the apartment various forgotten things - dead flowers, mouldy leftovers, potatoes growing in the vegetable bin, and a huge cobweb in kitchen stretching from the side of the kitchen table right the way up to the ceiling!
Because I’d had no shopping opportunities for so long I had several long shopping lists for various places in both Paris and the UK. I did local shopping in Saint-Denis on Friday afternoon, and went into Paris on Saturday. N refused my invitation to come with me, as he was anxious to consult his stamp albums at Saint-Denis together with the new additions he had bought at fairs in Normandy. I started off at Le Forum des Halles, at FNAC to buy printer cartridges for the computer, cosmetics at Sephora, and lunch at Tarte Julie. As I came out to the metro to go on to the Grands Magasins, I saw the sun was shining! An amazing event as the weather had been so grey and wintery lately; unbelievably, sun had been forecast for the weekend and here it was. After shopping at C & A, Bouchara and Lafayette Maison I got the metro back to Saint-Denis in time to have my eyebrows done. The only thing I hadn’t managed to get was a little metal sign to put by our bell at LNL which is hard to see through the gate, but BHV basement - the only likely place - was too far from everywhere else I was going.
On Sunday morning I went early to the Gare du Nord for the 9.10 Eurostar, met daughter Madeleine at Waterloo and went back to her flat at Clapham Junction for lunch. In the afternoon I caught the train to Ipswich (actually it was a bus as far as Colchester) and stayed with family until Wednesday, enjoying more shopping, visiting, catching up with everybody and eating out.
Another train on Wednesday morning and on to Cambridge to stay with my friend Gill, who met me at the station. It was over a year since I had been back to Cambridge, and this time I was staying close to where I had lived before, between 1981 and 1998. As I walked around over the few days I was there I kept coming across different layers of different lives, all stretching over the 35 years I had lived in Cambridge. Yet more shopping; I had been in enough chain stores so it was mostly small unusual shops, and an interesting trip into N’s college to photograph his portrait. When it had been completed by the Vietnamese artist last year, N had explained to him that it would hang in a large college room with lots of others, and promised to send him a photo so that he could see what it looked like. Armed with a letter of introduction to the Head Porter I was accompanied to the Senior Common Room, took half a dozen photos with my new digital camera, complimented him on the lawns and flowers, and walked out again into Kings Parade, which I very much enjoyed, especially the National Trust Shop.
I spent the rest of the time catching up with colleagues, friends Zoë and Samin & children and cat Albertine, and watching DVDs with Gill; and on the Saturday afternoon going back to my ex-neighbour Jo in Ainsworth Street, and seeing my old house again from next door for first time since I left. I then walked to station - a journey I had done countless times before - and took the train back to London where I had a brief meeting and cup of tea with daughter Caroline at Waterloo. This was my last visit to Waterloo for some time - perhaps ever! - as from November Eurostar will leave from Saint Pancras. The journey back to Paris was quick and quiet; few other passengers, and direct to the Gare du Nord where N was waiting for me with the car. He had spent much of week sorting and valuing his stamp collections, plus a quick trip to FNAC and inviting Odile to tea; also making an appointment for next week with an eye doctor in Bernay, as he kept seeing little black spots before his eyes.
We spent Sunday quietly in the apartment in Saint-Denis, catching up with washing, sorting, and ironing things left from last time. I especially enjoyed Sunday lunch (at the dining table) and supper, both cooked by N. On Monday morning, N had a meeting planned with the resident architect at Les Ursulines regarding an ongoing discussion with a neighbour about a leak in her apartment below. Fortunately when the architect arrived the kitchen was clean, tidy and empty with all the washing-up done, but then he also needed to inspect the bathroom, just as I was about to wash and dress! It reminded me of when I was first living there two years ago, when there were frequent visits from plumbers.
Once the architect’s visit was over, we could leave for Normandy, and as always there was a lot to pack. Apart from all my shopping, there were N‘s stamp albums, all the leftover food as usual, a spare steam iron which had originally come from Italy, (the iron at LNL had never been very good, and has recently started leaking water) and both our raincoats, although there had been no rain since we had left Normandy. There were also several pieces of an old Amstrad computer from N‘s loft, as a result of a rash promise to Prof J to recover a thesis he had written on an Amstrad many years ago. We also left the apartment far tidier than last time! N left a message with the gardienne (concierge) asking her to let him know when the chimney sweep would be visiting, as last year he missed it, and was anxious not to let it go another year.
At about 1.00 pm we stopped for lunch at Hotel de l’Ouest opposite Evreux station; it seemed to me a deliciously French lunch after all my recent English pub meals, but rather too large - the herring and potato first course, although wonderful, would have been a lunch in itself. But it’s always a better idea to stop and eat on the way than to try and get lunch as soon we’ve arrived. We found the lawns very overgrown, N’s new doorstep fine, and lots of post in the post box. There were even a few apples on tree, the roses and dahlias were doing well, and there were the beginnings of a few Michaelmas daisies.
Wednesday 5 September 2007
Yesterday N went to see the doctor in Bernay, and was relieved to find that his eye problem was treatable and due only to wear & tear and old age. He also called in at Monsieur Bricolage for more cement, to continue repairing the walls and ceilings of the Box Office (second outhouse.)
In the village everything is much the same as usual; except that the boulangerie is still closed for its annual holiday. I have done lots of sorting, putting away and washing, and made a start on cleaning the house. N has mowed the lawns, touched up his step and stained the new threshold plank (this meant walking the long way round to the garden all day, as the verandah door was out of bounds.) He has also clipped the hedge around the potager, and tidied the virginia creeper along the front garden. (He said under French law, no doubt if anyone walked out into road because of our dangling creeper and got run over, we would be held responsible!) I did my exercise DVD for the first time for ages, wearing new gear bought last week in the UK. During the day we have spent a long time waiting for a parcel to be delivered for N; a slip of paper had been left while we were away, and both of us had tried with difficulty to phone for more information. When it eventually arrived it was a very heavy pack of three Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogues. (In order to complete the valuing process!)
It has been very warm today, and we have had the first lunch in the garden for as long as I can remember; the garden table and chairs needed a good clean. I hope this is the beginning of a fine, warm autumn! N has finally finished off the cement round verandah step and the edge of the path, and done more cementing in the second outhouse.
Thursday 6 September 2007
Today I have done lots of cooking; in the morning a bread pudding to use up some leftover baguette, and after lunch I began mint & apple jelly using the apples bought at a fair a couple of weeks ago. I hung the jelly bag up in the verandah this time; N said there wasn’t really room for it in the potting shed now, and it did seem rather dirty in there. As he has recently put hooks for drying herbs along the ceiling joist of the verandah, I was able to hang the bag from a piece of cord on one of those and balance the bowl on a stool. N said it sounded as though I was preparing for a hanging; was I then going to kick the stool away? This evening I have made leek and cream risotto for the first time using a giant leek N brought in from the garden. (« One giant leek for mankind… » he said. ) I like to think my risotto (from an Italian recipe) was all the better for stirring it while listening on the radio to tributes to Luciano Pavarotti, whose death was announced this morning. We were able to look at Italian TV to see all the news in detail; views and reporting from Pavarotti’s native town Modena, through which I once remember going by train. I also thought of my visit to Florence in 1994, and my landlady who was a big Pavarotti fan and always invited me into the kitchen when he was on television, which was often.
I have phoned to order a delivery of heating fuel; the evenings are drawing in, and for the last two nights we have gone to bed with a hot water bottle! In the garage N found what he thought was a leak of oil from the tank, and worried about how we would get it repaired. We decided to ask the delivery man what he thought. The weather has been strange during the day, cloudy but warm, and we had lunch in the garden again.
Sunday 9 September 2007
On Friday morning I went to the hairdresser (N having been on Wednesday, so we are all tidy now) and the heating fuel was delivered. The driver said oil is often spilled when the tank is filled, and, he thought that‘s all it was. We then switched the heating on, just for the mornings and evenings, so now we have a nice warm bedroom, and bathroom. I also finished off my mint jelly; there was far more of it than I had expected, and it used up my entire supply of small jars; I had thought there would be plenty to pick and choose from. It took a long time to write all the labels, stick them all on, and arrange them in a basket in the jam store in the first outhouse.
Yesterday we had a lovely day out at a town called Les Andelys, we had a long journey there using the car’s satellite navigation; N thought it seemed a very long way round. The morning mist cleared at about 10.30 and then there was beautiful warm sunshine all the rest of the day; about 23 degrees, and it was difficult to believe we had needed (and would need again) heating in the evening and morning. The main reason for going to Les Andelys was a very large foire à tout (1500 stallholders, it said in the paper.) By the time we had got there and found somewhere to park it was time for lunch, so we stopped at a pretty hotel garden with roses by the side of the Seine, and ate under the shade of the trees; duck with cherries, café liegeois, and cider to drink, which always tastes better out of doors. I started with smoked salmon salad and N with boudin in pastry, and I was especially pleased that I managed not to spill any of the lovely cherry red duck sauce down my brand new white T-shirt……..
We then made our way to the fair which took place along the whole length of a long main street. N bought two prints and looked at various violins and postcards, and said he thought that the prices were higher than in our part of Normandy. There was lots of interesting furniture to look at, some of which might even have done for the dining room at Saint-Denis - for which we are still trying to find a small cupboard - but it would have been impossible to carry back to the car. It was such a large fair that at one point we lost each other completely for about twenty minutes, but just as I was hurrying (or trying to) to where we had agreed to meet, I caught sight of N again.
I bought a small cheese dish with a round marble base and a transparent cover, and was very pleased to find a little « Sonnez SVP » notice for our front gate, on a stall selling all kinds of new metal signs. After some tea to fortify ourselves, we took a much shorter route back, having consulted the map. Once home, we found Prof J’s Amstrad disc in the post, so before (a very light) supper N began researching in the far studio with the Amstrad computer, which he had assembled next to the other two old computers on the very large table. He continued in the evening while I watched a very good play on BBC Prime, then we listened to The Last Night of Proms on the radio, in bed.
Monday 10 September 2007
Yesterday was very busy; N continued putting up ceilings and re-plastering walls in the Box Office, and I painted the remaining door on the side of the house, having thought in the sunshine the day before that this might be the last fine weekend for some time. (This is the glass-panelled door at the end of the side corridor, in between the windows of the grande pièce, kitchen and dining room which I painted a few weeks ago when it was so hot. No window sills or flower pots to worry about with a door.) At the same time, in an amazing display of time management, I cooked what N called a « real » Sunday lunch: roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast home-grown potatoes and carrots; steamed marrow and gravy, then rhubarb crumble and custard. Afterwards we continued our reading of Beowulf, having had a few Sundays off, and reached the end. I then went back and finished painting the door. Today I am very pleased with it; like the window frames it really could have done with two coats, but I think second coats will have to wait till next spring.
I have phoned Monsieur A to ask when someone (Guillaume?) can come to give an annual check on our new heating installation, and N has left a message for the TV man who seems to have completely forgotten that he has lent us a spare set while he repairs ours. I think our TV screen is going to look very small when we eventually get it back………
This morning we had a phone call from the gardienne at Saint-Denis telling us that the chimney sweep will be coming to Les Ursulines on Thursday 20 September - N’s birthday! We agreed that we would have to go back to Saint-Denis, and so could celebrate his birthday in Paris rather than Normandy, and about half an hour later the post brought the autumn opera schedule with a choice of two operas on that night: Strauss’ Capriccio, N’s favourite but unfortunately all booked up, and Elixir d’Amore, by Donizetti, at Opera Bastille, which wasn’t, so N has reserved two seats. It has been on the radio a lot this week, in recordings by Pavarotti. So, all of a sudden, we are going back to Paris next week, and to the Opera! Must decide what to wear.