Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Friday 26 October 2007
Monsieur B the TV engineer duly brought our set back on Wednesday afternoon; even though the screen is smaller than we have been used to the picture is very clear and the smaller silver-coloured set looks much better in the room than the huge black one he lent us. He agreed to take away N’s radio to have a look at it, and - even better - when I asked him if he knew of anyone who could repair vacuum cleaners he said he could do that too! This is our « downstairs » hoover, the one brought from Cambridge, which started being unreliable some weeks ago; I asked Marie-Antoinette if she knew where I could take it, she had no bright ideas but suggested I ask at the Quincaillerie; they said they dealt with some brands but not that one, and the only hope seemed to be if Monsieur B knew of anyone in L’Aigle. Meanwhile of course, we do have the luxury of the « upstairs » Italian hoover, but the result has been that I only bring it downstairs for the two carpeted rooms on the ground floor - the grande pièce and my study. For all the others - the salon, kitchen, dining room, front hall, back hall and verandah, it seems easier just to use a broom.
The other evening we received a phone call from Robert Urset - our former house agent - asking us to dinner on 8 December, when we shall be in Paris entertaining Claire, Dan and Charlotte. He also said he had called in one afternoon last week, but we weren’t there; it must have been the day we were shopping in Conches. We discussed it over dinner and said what a pity it was as we receive so few invitations like this - having hoped when we first arrived that it would only be a matter of time before we knew lots of people and had a busy social life.
Over the next two days however we received two more invitations in the post - it’s fairly unusual to receive hand-written envelopes addressed to us both! The first was from Professor J, N’s Hispanist colleague from the Sorbonne, enclosing a leaflet about the Château of Malmaison, near where he lives; and reminding us that we had said we would visit the Château. He had said when he was last here he would take us out to a restaurant as we have entertained him so well twice. He left it up to us to chose dates « this autumn » (not quite sure when he thinks that ends) but he is away a lot of the time we are in Paris over the next few weeks. N is pondering on all this, and also on all that Prof J also said about the on-going problem of trying to read an old Spanish thesis originally typed on an Amstrad.
The second envelope was from the Palmers, giving us their new address a few streets away in Saint-Denis, and an invitation to a housewarming, on an evening when we shall be in Vienna! They said they were also inviting Matt & Elke, so hoped we could come. I shall reply to this one, and hope we can see them (and especially their new apartment!) while we are in Saint-Denis either just before or just after we go to Vienna.
Yesterday morning N went to Conches to get yet more DIY supplies and this time I went along for the ride, as Thursday is market day in Conches. I also wanted to have a long and proper look at the main street, as when we have been there with guests we have only seen the section between the market and the castle. It was a cold morning and not many shops were open early, although the windows were very varied and interesting; about five boulangeries (how do they all stay in business?) several clothes shops and shoe shops and quite a few food shops. Also Monsieur Urset’s estate agency where we found this house on our very first visit to Conches. I would have called in to thank him again for his invitation, but as I went past he was with two clients, and on my way back he was on the phone. I walked right to the end of the town, (past the « Swan » hotel where we stayed on our first night in Normandy) where the path to the left went down a little hill by the side of very thick, high town walls, and there was a sort of Normandy country museum which seemed to be closed for the winter. All this left me very little time at the market, most of which I spent queuing at the most comprehensive vegetable stall I have ever seen; they even sold parsnips which N says are unknown here. The longer I waited the more different types of vegetables I saw; also topinembours (Jerusalem artichokes) for the first time this season; N is waiting to see when they appear before he digs up ours, as he has no idea when they will be ready. I bought vegetables to put with our white Italian beans in a Tuscan Bean Stew, probably for tomorrow as I also just had time to visit the famous fish stall to get smoked haddock for this evening.
Saturday 27 October 2007
Over the last few days I have had time to return to my War Letters project, which I left off at the beginning of last spring. I remembered how much I enjoyed it; like returning to a favourite serial and finding out what happened next. One of the reasons I had more time to devote to it was the winding down of dealing with vegetables coming in from the garden - but I now realise this was only because N was so busy redecorating the outhouses that he had not done any gardening recently! The weather is milder today, so he has dug up all the remaining beetroot, salsify, parsnips and topinembours and put most of them under sand in (carefully marked) old wooden wine boxes in the wine cellar. The topinembours look quite good - I have washed a few for tomorrow - and the parsnips are absolutely huge and very heavy, all about ten or eleven inches long and three or four inches across at their widest. It’s a good job we don’t have to eat them all at once.
As for the salsify, it must be the most ugly and labour-intensive vegetable I have ever come across and I hope its taste will be worth it. N appreciates the fact that it says in my copy of Jane Grigson’s « Vegetable Book » (an invaluable publication) that although rejected by the general public - in Britain presumably - salsify have always been grown by intelligent gardeners.
The Potting Shed is reaching the end of its make-over; some of the wall paint flaked off as it was applied (I had the same problem with the outdoor window sills) but it is a lot clearer, and once N has re-done the offending walls on Monday they will all be the same colour white, despite being uneven, which I am sure will not be noticed once it is full of tools, pots, fertilizers etc. The new indoor window sills look very good - and useful - and a new row of four spotlights on the ceiling is just what was required and infinitely preferable to the dangling light bulb. There is a problem with damp along the outside edge backed onto our neighbour’s property - the house For Sale where the dogs live. N thought what was needed was an application of cement from the other side, i.e. from our neighbours’ garden. This morning he went round and apparently found Monsieur pruning the roses, and quite amenable to N doing some cementing; N said some cement had already been applied, and the technique was even worse then his own! He also discovered that the house dated from the 1740's. The real problem though is that there is no gutter on the neighbours’ side so all the rain falls straight down the wall into the ground, right against the floor of our potting shed.
This morning a third hand-written envelope arrived addressed to us both; perhaps these things always come in threes! It was an invitation to another event we won’t be able to attend, from Cambridge friends Zoë and Samin who stayed with us last spring, inviting us to their wedding celebration at the end of November. But it’s good to know so many people remember us and are thinking of us.
Sunday 28 October 2007
This morning we needed to put all the clocks back; it always seems to take a long time and I never know afterwards if they're correct or a minute or two out either way. I leave N to do the one in the dining room, which I can't reach and the one on the radio in the salon, which I can never make out. Although we now wake up in the light (daylight at 7.30 instead of 8.30) I now spend a long time lowering all the blinds in the late afternoon.
On the boat on the way home from Britain I finished reading the penultimate volume of « Les Thibault » and am waiting before reading the last volume about WWI, so that I can savour it. Meanwhile I have caught up with the latest issue of the London Review of Books which was here waiting for me and have finally begun my « pre-Vienna » reading.
This - apart from the guide book - consists of a Life of Mahler, (one of a CUP series, in English) given to me by a very intellectual Austrian from Vienna who stayed with me at Ainsworth Street some years ago. I began reading it then but had to stop and decided I would read it again when I went to Vienna. I’m about a third of the way though and am finding lots of interesting comparisons; with Les Thibault, Mozart’s letters and Proust, to name but a few.
The other book I hoped to read (perhaps when I’m there, even) is a dual language French/German edition of Kafka’s Die Verwandlung, bought in the German bookshop in Paris about two years ago. This will of course be in an attempt to remember some German again. N keeps turning the television to German channels, but the content of the programmes is not always very stimulating. The other evening however we found a very good dramatisation of the life of Pope John Paul II; we were able to watch it in French, I don’t know what language it was originally. We seemed to have missed the first episode, but saw the last two on consecutive evenings. I found the parts dealing with the assassination attempt particularly moving.
Lunch today was memorable; the first time either of us had eaten salsify and the first time we had eaten our own topinembours. The latter were soft and tasty and wonderful, much better than those from the market, and I’m glad there are lots more. The salsify however, were still hard work - after boiling them I had to scrape off the dirty brown skin as quickly as I could - and they tasted a little like parsnips, but not quite as good. We ate them with a spicy chicken dish, and N was happily counting the number of our own garden products included in the meal; apart from these two there was our own onion in with the chicken, apples in the chutney and rhubarb in the crumble.
Monday 29 October 2007
This morning in the boulangerie I overheard a young woman speaking English to her two small children and when I came face to face with her outside as she parked her car, I remarked that we didn’t often hear it spoken here. She laughed; it turned out that she lived somewhere remote beyond Ambenay, and was just as surprised to have found me, as she seemed to come shopping often in LNL. She talked about an English couple with a large house nearby having invited other English speakers; I told her we lived at number three and to let me know if there was anything going on. N said afterwards - and I agreed - that I should have given her my card. Will make sure I have a supply in my purse, instead of just in my diary. (Which I do not normally take to the boulangerie.)
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Yesterday evening I finished my embroidery - the all red counted cross stitch sampler kit bought from a brocante sale for one euro. I then spent the rest of the evening going through all the embroidery patterns, thread, fabric etc that was in the little old tin trunk I brought from Cambridge; not looked at since I put it all into store, in the hope that I would take it up again one day, and was pleased to find that there is plenty I can be getting on with, as it can turn into an expensive hobby if one keeps buying kits.
So this morning I caught the bus to L’Aigle and took my finished sampler into the sewing shop to have it framed, and will collect it some time in late November. There wasn’t really a lot to do or look at in L’Aigle - as we are going to Paris so soon it was not worth buying a lot to eat (or any flowers - and in any case the whole flower market was given over to pots of chrysanthemums as it is getting very close to the first day of November.)
Meanwhile N went to the hairdressers and amongst other things talked about vegetables; told them all about his parsnips and said that I would take them one when I go there tomorrow! I am quite sure this is the first time that I - or indeed anybody - have taken a parsnip to the hairdressers.
Wednesday 30 October 2007
They were very busy at the hairdressers this morning, because they will be closed tomorrow I suppose; November 1st, all Saints Day, is a holiday. At least I read a lot of the Life of Mahler while I was waiting. N’s stylist Sylvie was very pleased to receive her parsnip, which she referred to as ‘le petit légume » (I said no, it was quite big) and various clients who were having their hair done were also keen to have a look. I advised her to boil it gently or roast it, not grate it as she suggested; I think she was thinking of celeriac. Also, saw Marie-Antoinette there, with her two grand-daughters, who are called Mathilde and Constance. She seemed very envious when I said we were going to Vienna, and said she thought one would need to look quite smart there. I agreed.
Two interesting things in N’s post today; his house keys lost in Paris at the end of September, with the special numbered tag, have turned up! A letter today asked him to get in touch, so he has asked them to be posted here ready for when we get back. Also, notice of a new system of « badge » entry to the apartments at Saint-Denis, inconveniently starting the day we go to Vienna. We will need to make some kind of arrangement with the gardienne.
Today is bright and sunny and N has had a huge on-going bonfire, burning about a year’s worth of vegetation from under the big fir-tree, now that the potager is empty of most of the vegetables. We are beginning to make lists and preparations for packing to go to Saint-Denis tomorrow, ready to go on to Vienna next week. It is rather nice to be able to say « ....when we are away next week in Paris and Vienna .... » but, as N would say, « That’s what we’re here for. »
Monsieur B the TV engineer duly brought our set back on Wednesday afternoon; even though the screen is smaller than we have been used to the picture is very clear and the smaller silver-coloured set looks much better in the room than the huge black one he lent us. He agreed to take away N’s radio to have a look at it, and - even better - when I asked him if he knew of anyone who could repair vacuum cleaners he said he could do that too! This is our « downstairs » hoover, the one brought from Cambridge, which started being unreliable some weeks ago; I asked Marie-Antoinette if she knew where I could take it, she had no bright ideas but suggested I ask at the Quincaillerie; they said they dealt with some brands but not that one, and the only hope seemed to be if Monsieur B knew of anyone in L’Aigle. Meanwhile of course, we do have the luxury of the « upstairs » Italian hoover, but the result has been that I only bring it downstairs for the two carpeted rooms on the ground floor - the grande pièce and my study. For all the others - the salon, kitchen, dining room, front hall, back hall and verandah, it seems easier just to use a broom.
The other evening we received a phone call from Robert Urset - our former house agent - asking us to dinner on 8 December, when we shall be in Paris entertaining Claire, Dan and Charlotte. He also said he had called in one afternoon last week, but we weren’t there; it must have been the day we were shopping in Conches. We discussed it over dinner and said what a pity it was as we receive so few invitations like this - having hoped when we first arrived that it would only be a matter of time before we knew lots of people and had a busy social life.
Over the next two days however we received two more invitations in the post - it’s fairly unusual to receive hand-written envelopes addressed to us both! The first was from Professor J, N’s Hispanist colleague from the Sorbonne, enclosing a leaflet about the Château of Malmaison, near where he lives; and reminding us that we had said we would visit the Château. He had said when he was last here he would take us out to a restaurant as we have entertained him so well twice. He left it up to us to chose dates « this autumn » (not quite sure when he thinks that ends) but he is away a lot of the time we are in Paris over the next few weeks. N is pondering on all this, and also on all that Prof J also said about the on-going problem of trying to read an old Spanish thesis originally typed on an Amstrad.
The second envelope was from the Palmers, giving us their new address a few streets away in Saint-Denis, and an invitation to a housewarming, on an evening when we shall be in Vienna! They said they were also inviting Matt & Elke, so hoped we could come. I shall reply to this one, and hope we can see them (and especially their new apartment!) while we are in Saint-Denis either just before or just after we go to Vienna.
Yesterday morning N went to Conches to get yet more DIY supplies and this time I went along for the ride, as Thursday is market day in Conches. I also wanted to have a long and proper look at the main street, as when we have been there with guests we have only seen the section between the market and the castle. It was a cold morning and not many shops were open early, although the windows were very varied and interesting; about five boulangeries (how do they all stay in business?) several clothes shops and shoe shops and quite a few food shops. Also Monsieur Urset’s estate agency where we found this house on our very first visit to Conches. I would have called in to thank him again for his invitation, but as I went past he was with two clients, and on my way back he was on the phone. I walked right to the end of the town, (past the « Swan » hotel where we stayed on our first night in Normandy) where the path to the left went down a little hill by the side of very thick, high town walls, and there was a sort of Normandy country museum which seemed to be closed for the winter. All this left me very little time at the market, most of which I spent queuing at the most comprehensive vegetable stall I have ever seen; they even sold parsnips which N says are unknown here. The longer I waited the more different types of vegetables I saw; also topinembours (Jerusalem artichokes) for the first time this season; N is waiting to see when they appear before he digs up ours, as he has no idea when they will be ready. I bought vegetables to put with our white Italian beans in a Tuscan Bean Stew, probably for tomorrow as I also just had time to visit the famous fish stall to get smoked haddock for this evening.
Saturday 27 October 2007
Over the last few days I have had time to return to my War Letters project, which I left off at the beginning of last spring. I remembered how much I enjoyed it; like returning to a favourite serial and finding out what happened next. One of the reasons I had more time to devote to it was the winding down of dealing with vegetables coming in from the garden - but I now realise this was only because N was so busy redecorating the outhouses that he had not done any gardening recently! The weather is milder today, so he has dug up all the remaining beetroot, salsify, parsnips and topinembours and put most of them under sand in (carefully marked) old wooden wine boxes in the wine cellar. The topinembours look quite good - I have washed a few for tomorrow - and the parsnips are absolutely huge and very heavy, all about ten or eleven inches long and three or four inches across at their widest. It’s a good job we don’t have to eat them all at once.
As for the salsify, it must be the most ugly and labour-intensive vegetable I have ever come across and I hope its taste will be worth it. N appreciates the fact that it says in my copy of Jane Grigson’s « Vegetable Book » (an invaluable publication) that although rejected by the general public - in Britain presumably - salsify have always been grown by intelligent gardeners.
The Potting Shed is reaching the end of its make-over; some of the wall paint flaked off as it was applied (I had the same problem with the outdoor window sills) but it is a lot clearer, and once N has re-done the offending walls on Monday they will all be the same colour white, despite being uneven, which I am sure will not be noticed once it is full of tools, pots, fertilizers etc. The new indoor window sills look very good - and useful - and a new row of four spotlights on the ceiling is just what was required and infinitely preferable to the dangling light bulb. There is a problem with damp along the outside edge backed onto our neighbour’s property - the house For Sale where the dogs live. N thought what was needed was an application of cement from the other side, i.e. from our neighbours’ garden. This morning he went round and apparently found Monsieur pruning the roses, and quite amenable to N doing some cementing; N said some cement had already been applied, and the technique was even worse then his own! He also discovered that the house dated from the 1740's. The real problem though is that there is no gutter on the neighbours’ side so all the rain falls straight down the wall into the ground, right against the floor of our potting shed.
This morning a third hand-written envelope arrived addressed to us both; perhaps these things always come in threes! It was an invitation to another event we won’t be able to attend, from Cambridge friends Zoë and Samin who stayed with us last spring, inviting us to their wedding celebration at the end of November. But it’s good to know so many people remember us and are thinking of us.
Sunday 28 October 2007
This morning we needed to put all the clocks back; it always seems to take a long time and I never know afterwards if they're correct or a minute or two out either way. I leave N to do the one in the dining room, which I can't reach and the one on the radio in the salon, which I can never make out. Although we now wake up in the light (daylight at 7.30 instead of 8.30) I now spend a long time lowering all the blinds in the late afternoon.
On the boat on the way home from Britain I finished reading the penultimate volume of « Les Thibault » and am waiting before reading the last volume about WWI, so that I can savour it. Meanwhile I have caught up with the latest issue of the London Review of Books which was here waiting for me and have finally begun my « pre-Vienna » reading.
This - apart from the guide book - consists of a Life of Mahler, (one of a CUP series, in English) given to me by a very intellectual Austrian from Vienna who stayed with me at Ainsworth Street some years ago. I began reading it then but had to stop and decided I would read it again when I went to Vienna. I’m about a third of the way though and am finding lots of interesting comparisons; with Les Thibault, Mozart’s letters and Proust, to name but a few.
The other book I hoped to read (perhaps when I’m there, even) is a dual language French/German edition of Kafka’s Die Verwandlung, bought in the German bookshop in Paris about two years ago. This will of course be in an attempt to remember some German again. N keeps turning the television to German channels, but the content of the programmes is not always very stimulating. The other evening however we found a very good dramatisation of the life of Pope John Paul II; we were able to watch it in French, I don’t know what language it was originally. We seemed to have missed the first episode, but saw the last two on consecutive evenings. I found the parts dealing with the assassination attempt particularly moving.
Lunch today was memorable; the first time either of us had eaten salsify and the first time we had eaten our own topinembours. The latter were soft and tasty and wonderful, much better than those from the market, and I’m glad there are lots more. The salsify however, were still hard work - after boiling them I had to scrape off the dirty brown skin as quickly as I could - and they tasted a little like parsnips, but not quite as good. We ate them with a spicy chicken dish, and N was happily counting the number of our own garden products included in the meal; apart from these two there was our own onion in with the chicken, apples in the chutney and rhubarb in the crumble.
Monday 29 October 2007
This morning in the boulangerie I overheard a young woman speaking English to her two small children and when I came face to face with her outside as she parked her car, I remarked that we didn’t often hear it spoken here. She laughed; it turned out that she lived somewhere remote beyond Ambenay, and was just as surprised to have found me, as she seemed to come shopping often in LNL. She talked about an English couple with a large house nearby having invited other English speakers; I told her we lived at number three and to let me know if there was anything going on. N said afterwards - and I agreed - that I should have given her my card. Will make sure I have a supply in my purse, instead of just in my diary. (Which I do not normally take to the boulangerie.)
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Yesterday evening I finished my embroidery - the all red counted cross stitch sampler kit bought from a brocante sale for one euro. I then spent the rest of the evening going through all the embroidery patterns, thread, fabric etc that was in the little old tin trunk I brought from Cambridge; not looked at since I put it all into store, in the hope that I would take it up again one day, and was pleased to find that there is plenty I can be getting on with, as it can turn into an expensive hobby if one keeps buying kits.
So this morning I caught the bus to L’Aigle and took my finished sampler into the sewing shop to have it framed, and will collect it some time in late November. There wasn’t really a lot to do or look at in L’Aigle - as we are going to Paris so soon it was not worth buying a lot to eat (or any flowers - and in any case the whole flower market was given over to pots of chrysanthemums as it is getting very close to the first day of November.)
Meanwhile N went to the hairdressers and amongst other things talked about vegetables; told them all about his parsnips and said that I would take them one when I go there tomorrow! I am quite sure this is the first time that I - or indeed anybody - have taken a parsnip to the hairdressers.
Wednesday 30 October 2007
They were very busy at the hairdressers this morning, because they will be closed tomorrow I suppose; November 1st, all Saints Day, is a holiday. At least I read a lot of the Life of Mahler while I was waiting. N’s stylist Sylvie was very pleased to receive her parsnip, which she referred to as ‘le petit légume » (I said no, it was quite big) and various clients who were having their hair done were also keen to have a look. I advised her to boil it gently or roast it, not grate it as she suggested; I think she was thinking of celeriac. Also, saw Marie-Antoinette there, with her two grand-daughters, who are called Mathilde and Constance. She seemed very envious when I said we were going to Vienna, and said she thought one would need to look quite smart there. I agreed.
Two interesting things in N’s post today; his house keys lost in Paris at the end of September, with the special numbered tag, have turned up! A letter today asked him to get in touch, so he has asked them to be posted here ready for when we get back. Also, notice of a new system of « badge » entry to the apartments at Saint-Denis, inconveniently starting the day we go to Vienna. We will need to make some kind of arrangement with the gardienne.
Today is bright and sunny and N has had a huge on-going bonfire, burning about a year’s worth of vegetation from under the big fir-tree, now that the potager is empty of most of the vegetables. We are beginning to make lists and preparations for packing to go to Saint-Denis tomorrow, ready to go on to Vienna next week. It is rather nice to be able to say « ....when we are away next week in Paris and Vienna .... » but, as N would say, « That’s what we’re here for. »
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Sunday 21 October 2007
Since we came back from Plymouth, N has finished off all the work in the second outhouse; the repairing and plastering of the walls, the staining and preservation of the big dark brown beams, filling in the gaps at the base of the walls where it was damp, replacing the bare bulb with a suitable light fitting and putting an anti-damp product on the floor. It all looks very smart and clean, too clean really for just an outhouse; we can think of various things we might have used it for if we had less space indoors, but we don’t need any extra rooms! Anyway, as N says, it has kept him out of mischief and off the streets. In the photos I took, it looks like very nice mock Tudor tea room. It could possibly be used for entertaining noisy young visitors; they could all be put in there on a wet afternoon to play Monopoly. But we aren’t expecting any just at the moment. So it reverts to its previous use as a - much cleaner - store for summer furniture over the winter. All the garden furniture is now in there, including the « luxury » table and chairs which are really on their last legs, as I’m sure they will be needed one fine day in April before I have managed to buy any replacements.
And another achievement - after some discussion with Guthrie on the subject, N has managed to get the bathroom light working; apparently a battery is needed in addition to the neon bulb, which he was able to get at the Quincaillerie and fix. So we can now see what we are doing! (The morning we left for Plymouth, having got up in the pitch dark I went to put on my makeup in the other bathroom.)
N has now progressed to the Potting Shed; I don’t know how far he will get before it gets too cold and too dark to work outdoors. There is less repairing to do in there, apart from filling in huge holes in the plaster on the back wall, but a lot of tidying and devising storage methods, for seeds, tools and flower pots. The latter are currently all looking very decorative standing out on the path, a little like a garden centre. He is also planning to put useful window sills in front of the very large and unattractive windows.
Linking the Potting Shed to the two already modernised « studios » is an extremely primitive little room which we call The Ante-Room, and which N is really keen to do something with, although not before the spring I think. Here there are bare bricks and rafters, and one can see the sky through several gaps between the beams and the roof. The floor consists of uneven breeze blocks, and around the door frames the bricks are very rough and unfinished. He has already bought thick polystyrene sheets for the ceiling.
So what have I been doing while all this is going on? Encouraging and taking photos, and all the usual post-visit washing, ironing and tidying away. Until this weekend we had only gone as far as Conches, for supermarket supplies and to get more plaster and paint, and also called in at the little garden centre Gamm Vert for more crocuses to plant in the front of the hydrangea bed. As the girl at the checkout processed our six or seven bags of bulbs she asked, so you’re keen on crocuses then, are you? I said wouldn’t she be glad to see them coming through at the end of the winter, and she had to agree. N has since cleared back the edge of the hydrangea bed and planted them all along the front on both sides of the outhouse door.
Last Sunday we had a Proper Sunday Lunch, including a roast chicken, so the day after I made curried chicken, and used the resulting stock for curried apple & carrot soup - the last of the carrots were very oddly shaped but had such a good taste that soup was the best bet, and it used up a few of the apples in the outhouse. The Sunday lunch included baked stuffed apples, using the new apple corer bought at Dartington and some of last year’s mincemeat from the freezer. I also spent most of one afternoon making a Dundee cake, much appreciated by N.
Another sunny morning I spent a lot of time in the garden, tidying all the busy lizzies in the troughs around the verandah windows; I don’t know how much longer they will last. I planted the rest of the miniature daffodils in a little terra cotta trough, and took ages sweeping up leaves - all the paths inside the garden and all the red Virginia creeper leaves from both our own front path and the pavement outside. I’m never very sure of the etiquette involved here; whether or not it is the done thing to sweep leaves from one’s own garden into the gutter; whereas sweeping into the gutter leaves from one’s hedge which have fallen on to the pavement seems very public-spirited, if a little dangerous - the path is not wide so every time a large lorry comes past I stop and lean against our wall. N says it doesn’t make any difference about the leaves as they are all collected by a big sweeping machine. Anyway, the neighbours who went by and passed the time of day seemed very cheery, so I expect it was all right.
We have also spent more time than usual watching television, as BBC Prime schedules have altered so that The Antiques Road Show is on every afternoon, followed at tea time by Homes under the Hammer, about property auctions, which I find equally riveting. We are also watching a double video of the opera War and Peace (Prokoviev) in instalments; I have meant to watch this ever since I finished reading the book. Unfortunately one of the videos is slightly damaged, but even stranger is the adaptation of the book; I don’t suppose he could include everything or the opera would last days, but I was very surprised to find the character of Nicolai was left out.
Last Thursday the TV news was full of a big transport strike which hit most of France, particularly trains, buses and metro in Paris so I was very glad we were not there, or trying to get a train from L’Aigle or Evreux. It was caused by a dispute involving the ending of early retirement benefits currently enjoyed by many transport workers. The next day I went to the local paper shop to collect a jacket which had been dry cleaned and an elderly woman I had not seen before was holding forth about the strikers, and apologising for the bad language she was using to describe them. She obviously thought as she had had to work 44 years paying benefits, they should do the same. The patronne of the shop - who was sitting behind the till in a woolly hat and anorak eating Smarties, and is probably in her thirties, said she was already paying two lots of pension contributions, state and private. The new paper shop premises are very odd; obviously a rather poor little house just used as a shop, and with no heating, hence the hat and a notice on the door begging all customers to close it on leaving. Perhaps the rent for the previous shop was too high?
The other thing in the news last week - apart from the rugby - was the divorce of President Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia; in all the papers, both French and foreign and then confirmed on the day of the transport strike! I feel very sorry for them both.
This week the weather has been cold but very sunny; apparently temperatures more like November, the heating is now on most of the day, the time for cotton jackets is over and today I wore gloves for the first time. Thanks to posters in the village and the latest copy of a useful magazine detailing all fairs, antique shows and markets in the area (courtesy of the paper shop) this weekend we have been to two Foires de la Pomme (apple fairs) one of which included a Foire à Tout.
Monday 22 October 2007
The Foire de la Pomme at the town of Vimoutiers lasted three days, and we went on Saturday. Although we knew the name we had never been there before and it was further away than I thought - just under an hour - but some of the scenery was breathtaking, and the car’s satellite navigation took us part of the way down tiny little tracks, through what N calls « deepest Normandy. »
The fair was all over the town, with stalls selling local produce, and the cheap market stalls and craft stalls we have seen over the summer at Foires à Tout but beginning to look more and more like a Christmas market. There was also a big funfair and in the centre of the town in the Halle au Beurre (Butter Market) an amazing display of apples contributed by local growers; it wasn’t clear if this was a competition in the English sense, or just for the interest of looking at it all. In the middle was a giant model of a bottle of Belgian beer, beer glass, carton of chips and a bowl of oysters (apparently this year’s theme was Belgium) all made from tiny cider apples! On sale were postcards showing other models displayed over the last few years, all made out of apples in the same way.
The thing I liked most though was a Belgian band and male dancers rather like Morris Dancers, called Les Gilles; a style and tradition of dancing as well known in Belgium as Morris Men are in England. They wore dark caps and trousers, blue shirts and clogs, carried little sticks, and paraded behind their banner through the main street, stopping to dance before moving on. The band that followed was not in uniform, but played music that really appealed to me, a very basic kind of loud and rhythmic folk music, and a tune that stayed in my head. I think N was amused that I liked them so much, and wanted to go after them, whereas he wanted to visit the church; I followed them until they boarded their bus, then we did go into the church, nineteenth century but interesting for the information displayed about the churches in the little neighbouring parishes.
Before leaving Vimoutiers N bought various things to eat, ready to make a Very Norman Meal that evening. One the way home we visited Camembert, which we had been meaning to go to for some time - I don’t think N believed there really was such a place until I showed him on the map. The various tourist attractions were closed for the winter; all we saw were some very beautiful contented cows in many of the nearby fields, but I thought it would be a good place to bring summer visitors, especially as the journey there was so pretty.
Our « Norman » dinner consisted of boudin noir (black pudding) with sauté potatoes and some of our own apple purée mixed with cream and calvados, a large chunk of very rustic bread, a big piece of delicious cheese whose name we didn’t catch - the slice was about ten inches by four inches, but fortunately quite thin - cider to drink and a couple of little tarts called « soufflets normands », like lemon meringue pie but with apple.
Yesterday morning (Sunday) we went to a Foire de la Pomme and a Foire à Tout both together at Barre-en-Ouche, just a little way up the road. It was the first really cold morning, and a very different prospect from visiting a Foire à Tout in the summer sunshine. One stallholder was sitting under a big thick blanket, and those whose pitches were in the shade were very unlucky. There was a tent with a display of apples, like we had seen the day before, and the stalls were very varied - china, glass, silver, books; probably a lot of professional dealers.
Because we have been to so many fairs and bought so many things (!) we are getting more choosey; N bought a French Scrabble, to go with our English set in the Games Cupboard, and a large chrysanthemum in a pot from the plant man we see in our own village on Mondays. I was rather pleased with a tiny electric kettle for 3 euros, but N has since tried to persuade me it is very dangerous as it does not have its own on/off switch and does not automatically turn itself off when boiling. I still think I could use it carefully and safely if necessary, perhaps when lending our own bedroom kettle to a visitor.
For the past two Sundays we have lit the fire after lunch; we are still reading « The Wind in the Willows » and many of the scenes seem to involve sitting round blazing fires, so it was all very appropriate! The smoke still tends to come out into the room, into the house even, but the smell of the wood smoke is very pleasant.
Tuesday 23 October 2007
This morning I finally got rid of the eight troughs of white busy lizzies on the verandah windowsills and emptied them into the compost bins - the frost eventually got to them last night. They have done very well, as Bobbie could remember us buying them when she and Guthrie were here last April. I then cleaned the windowsills, the trays the troughs had been standing in, and the windows themselves; they were covered with marks from dead petals, and higher up with splashes from when the drain unblocking was going on. It all looks very clean and tidy now; the washed troughs are waiting in the atelier, and the trays back on the sills, one with the terra cotta trough of planted daffodils. It should be nice and clear for when Monsieur P the carpenter comes to fit the new door. No news of that yet, but Monsieur B the TV man is due tomorrow afternoon. No news at all from Monsieur A about anything.
While this was going on N started the cementing of the large holes in the walls and ceiling of the potting shed; yesterday morning he went to get more supplies from Conches while I stayed at home and finished my exercise DVD and had a late breakfast. He is now working in there with a blow heater, and being given soup for lunch every day to warm him up.
In the market and in the village florists there are more and more chrysanthemums in evidence - it is getting close to that time of the year at the beginning of November when they are laid in cemeteries. And there is already a poster in the village shop advertising the ceremony at the village War Memorial on 11 November; unfortunately we shan’t be able to go this time as we shall be in Vienna.
Since we came back from Plymouth, N has finished off all the work in the second outhouse; the repairing and plastering of the walls, the staining and preservation of the big dark brown beams, filling in the gaps at the base of the walls where it was damp, replacing the bare bulb with a suitable light fitting and putting an anti-damp product on the floor. It all looks very smart and clean, too clean really for just an outhouse; we can think of various things we might have used it for if we had less space indoors, but we don’t need any extra rooms! Anyway, as N says, it has kept him out of mischief and off the streets. In the photos I took, it looks like very nice mock Tudor tea room. It could possibly be used for entertaining noisy young visitors; they could all be put in there on a wet afternoon to play Monopoly. But we aren’t expecting any just at the moment. So it reverts to its previous use as a - much cleaner - store for summer furniture over the winter. All the garden furniture is now in there, including the « luxury » table and chairs which are really on their last legs, as I’m sure they will be needed one fine day in April before I have managed to buy any replacements.
And another achievement - after some discussion with Guthrie on the subject, N has managed to get the bathroom light working; apparently a battery is needed in addition to the neon bulb, which he was able to get at the Quincaillerie and fix. So we can now see what we are doing! (The morning we left for Plymouth, having got up in the pitch dark I went to put on my makeup in the other bathroom.)
N has now progressed to the Potting Shed; I don’t know how far he will get before it gets too cold and too dark to work outdoors. There is less repairing to do in there, apart from filling in huge holes in the plaster on the back wall, but a lot of tidying and devising storage methods, for seeds, tools and flower pots. The latter are currently all looking very decorative standing out on the path, a little like a garden centre. He is also planning to put useful window sills in front of the very large and unattractive windows.
Linking the Potting Shed to the two already modernised « studios » is an extremely primitive little room which we call The Ante-Room, and which N is really keen to do something with, although not before the spring I think. Here there are bare bricks and rafters, and one can see the sky through several gaps between the beams and the roof. The floor consists of uneven breeze blocks, and around the door frames the bricks are very rough and unfinished. He has already bought thick polystyrene sheets for the ceiling.
So what have I been doing while all this is going on? Encouraging and taking photos, and all the usual post-visit washing, ironing and tidying away. Until this weekend we had only gone as far as Conches, for supermarket supplies and to get more plaster and paint, and also called in at the little garden centre Gamm Vert for more crocuses to plant in the front of the hydrangea bed. As the girl at the checkout processed our six or seven bags of bulbs she asked, so you’re keen on crocuses then, are you? I said wouldn’t she be glad to see them coming through at the end of the winter, and she had to agree. N has since cleared back the edge of the hydrangea bed and planted them all along the front on both sides of the outhouse door.
Last Sunday we had a Proper Sunday Lunch, including a roast chicken, so the day after I made curried chicken, and used the resulting stock for curried apple & carrot soup - the last of the carrots were very oddly shaped but had such a good taste that soup was the best bet, and it used up a few of the apples in the outhouse. The Sunday lunch included baked stuffed apples, using the new apple corer bought at Dartington and some of last year’s mincemeat from the freezer. I also spent most of one afternoon making a Dundee cake, much appreciated by N.
Another sunny morning I spent a lot of time in the garden, tidying all the busy lizzies in the troughs around the verandah windows; I don’t know how much longer they will last. I planted the rest of the miniature daffodils in a little terra cotta trough, and took ages sweeping up leaves - all the paths inside the garden and all the red Virginia creeper leaves from both our own front path and the pavement outside. I’m never very sure of the etiquette involved here; whether or not it is the done thing to sweep leaves from one’s own garden into the gutter; whereas sweeping into the gutter leaves from one’s hedge which have fallen on to the pavement seems very public-spirited, if a little dangerous - the path is not wide so every time a large lorry comes past I stop and lean against our wall. N says it doesn’t make any difference about the leaves as they are all collected by a big sweeping machine. Anyway, the neighbours who went by and passed the time of day seemed very cheery, so I expect it was all right.
We have also spent more time than usual watching television, as BBC Prime schedules have altered so that The Antiques Road Show is on every afternoon, followed at tea time by Homes under the Hammer, about property auctions, which I find equally riveting. We are also watching a double video of the opera War and Peace (Prokoviev) in instalments; I have meant to watch this ever since I finished reading the book. Unfortunately one of the videos is slightly damaged, but even stranger is the adaptation of the book; I don’t suppose he could include everything or the opera would last days, but I was very surprised to find the character of Nicolai was left out.
Last Thursday the TV news was full of a big transport strike which hit most of France, particularly trains, buses and metro in Paris so I was very glad we were not there, or trying to get a train from L’Aigle or Evreux. It was caused by a dispute involving the ending of early retirement benefits currently enjoyed by many transport workers. The next day I went to the local paper shop to collect a jacket which had been dry cleaned and an elderly woman I had not seen before was holding forth about the strikers, and apologising for the bad language she was using to describe them. She obviously thought as she had had to work 44 years paying benefits, they should do the same. The patronne of the shop - who was sitting behind the till in a woolly hat and anorak eating Smarties, and is probably in her thirties, said she was already paying two lots of pension contributions, state and private. The new paper shop premises are very odd; obviously a rather poor little house just used as a shop, and with no heating, hence the hat and a notice on the door begging all customers to close it on leaving. Perhaps the rent for the previous shop was too high?
The other thing in the news last week - apart from the rugby - was the divorce of President Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia; in all the papers, both French and foreign and then confirmed on the day of the transport strike! I feel very sorry for them both.
This week the weather has been cold but very sunny; apparently temperatures more like November, the heating is now on most of the day, the time for cotton jackets is over and today I wore gloves for the first time. Thanks to posters in the village and the latest copy of a useful magazine detailing all fairs, antique shows and markets in the area (courtesy of the paper shop) this weekend we have been to two Foires de la Pomme (apple fairs) one of which included a Foire à Tout.
Monday 22 October 2007
The Foire de la Pomme at the town of Vimoutiers lasted three days, and we went on Saturday. Although we knew the name we had never been there before and it was further away than I thought - just under an hour - but some of the scenery was breathtaking, and the car’s satellite navigation took us part of the way down tiny little tracks, through what N calls « deepest Normandy. »
The fair was all over the town, with stalls selling local produce, and the cheap market stalls and craft stalls we have seen over the summer at Foires à Tout but beginning to look more and more like a Christmas market. There was also a big funfair and in the centre of the town in the Halle au Beurre (Butter Market) an amazing display of apples contributed by local growers; it wasn’t clear if this was a competition in the English sense, or just for the interest of looking at it all. In the middle was a giant model of a bottle of Belgian beer, beer glass, carton of chips and a bowl of oysters (apparently this year’s theme was Belgium) all made from tiny cider apples! On sale were postcards showing other models displayed over the last few years, all made out of apples in the same way.
The thing I liked most though was a Belgian band and male dancers rather like Morris Dancers, called Les Gilles; a style and tradition of dancing as well known in Belgium as Morris Men are in England. They wore dark caps and trousers, blue shirts and clogs, carried little sticks, and paraded behind their banner through the main street, stopping to dance before moving on. The band that followed was not in uniform, but played music that really appealed to me, a very basic kind of loud and rhythmic folk music, and a tune that stayed in my head. I think N was amused that I liked them so much, and wanted to go after them, whereas he wanted to visit the church; I followed them until they boarded their bus, then we did go into the church, nineteenth century but interesting for the information displayed about the churches in the little neighbouring parishes.
Before leaving Vimoutiers N bought various things to eat, ready to make a Very Norman Meal that evening. One the way home we visited Camembert, which we had been meaning to go to for some time - I don’t think N believed there really was such a place until I showed him on the map. The various tourist attractions were closed for the winter; all we saw were some very beautiful contented cows in many of the nearby fields, but I thought it would be a good place to bring summer visitors, especially as the journey there was so pretty.
Our « Norman » dinner consisted of boudin noir (black pudding) with sauté potatoes and some of our own apple purée mixed with cream and calvados, a large chunk of very rustic bread, a big piece of delicious cheese whose name we didn’t catch - the slice was about ten inches by four inches, but fortunately quite thin - cider to drink and a couple of little tarts called « soufflets normands », like lemon meringue pie but with apple.
Yesterday morning (Sunday) we went to a Foire de la Pomme and a Foire à Tout both together at Barre-en-Ouche, just a little way up the road. It was the first really cold morning, and a very different prospect from visiting a Foire à Tout in the summer sunshine. One stallholder was sitting under a big thick blanket, and those whose pitches were in the shade were very unlucky. There was a tent with a display of apples, like we had seen the day before, and the stalls were very varied - china, glass, silver, books; probably a lot of professional dealers.
Because we have been to so many fairs and bought so many things (!) we are getting more choosey; N bought a French Scrabble, to go with our English set in the Games Cupboard, and a large chrysanthemum in a pot from the plant man we see in our own village on Mondays. I was rather pleased with a tiny electric kettle for 3 euros, but N has since tried to persuade me it is very dangerous as it does not have its own on/off switch and does not automatically turn itself off when boiling. I still think I could use it carefully and safely if necessary, perhaps when lending our own bedroom kettle to a visitor.
For the past two Sundays we have lit the fire after lunch; we are still reading « The Wind in the Willows » and many of the scenes seem to involve sitting round blazing fires, so it was all very appropriate! The smoke still tends to come out into the room, into the house even, but the smell of the wood smoke is very pleasant.
Tuesday 23 October 2007
This morning I finally got rid of the eight troughs of white busy lizzies on the verandah windowsills and emptied them into the compost bins - the frost eventually got to them last night. They have done very well, as Bobbie could remember us buying them when she and Guthrie were here last April. I then cleaned the windowsills, the trays the troughs had been standing in, and the windows themselves; they were covered with marks from dead petals, and higher up with splashes from when the drain unblocking was going on. It all looks very clean and tidy now; the washed troughs are waiting in the atelier, and the trays back on the sills, one with the terra cotta trough of planted daffodils. It should be nice and clear for when Monsieur P the carpenter comes to fit the new door. No news of that yet, but Monsieur B the TV man is due tomorrow afternoon. No news at all from Monsieur A about anything.
While this was going on N started the cementing of the large holes in the walls and ceiling of the potting shed; yesterday morning he went to get more supplies from Conches while I stayed at home and finished my exercise DVD and had a late breakfast. He is now working in there with a blow heater, and being given soup for lunch every day to warm him up.
In the market and in the village florists there are more and more chrysanthemums in evidence - it is getting close to that time of the year at the beginning of November when they are laid in cemeteries. And there is already a poster in the village shop advertising the ceremony at the village War Memorial on 11 November; unfortunately we shan’t be able to go this time as we shall be in Vienna.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
We got up early on Friday morning - it was still very dark - and set off for the port at Caen at about 8.30. The first thing of note, as we passed through La Vieille-Lyre, was a brand new sign announcing its twinning with Eardisland, the village in Herefordshire we had heard about last year, but of which we have heard nothing since.
The mist along the road gradually cleared, the temperature increased and after one brief stop we reached Caen early and had time to look round. N inspected the arrangements for foot passengers, ready for when - we hope - next year his Auntie Connie and cousin Delia will come to visit us from their home in the Isle of Wight, by ferry first to Portsmouth and then to Caen, and be collected by N in the car.
Despite the fine weather and calm sea, N - who does not consider himself a good sailor - sat quietly by a window for the whole voyage and refused to consider lunch. The ship was larger and better fitted than that of the Calais-Dover crossing we had taken in May, and took about three hours; the journey home was in a different ship and took far longer, but more of that later. So I had a sandwich on my own, and later went and sat in the café with a cup of tea, some chocolate and a magazine, and it suddenly felt like my afternoon tea breaks in the office canteen. I was very glad it wasn’t!
The ship docked at Portsmouth and we drove along the south coast towards the west - inconvenient as the low afternoon sun was in our eyes the whole way. We went though Dorset and into Devon, neither of which I had ever been to before; beautiful countryside with green rolling hills and golden trees, less harsh than the Normandy landscape but similar with its cows, apple trees and adverts for cider and cream. I saw a signpost down a lane to the sea marked Farm Holidays and thought of the Famous Five. We were accompanied by lovely English music on BBC Radio 3 all the way, but couldn’t really find anywhere to stop for tea as we were neither on motorways nor in town centres. In the end we found a primitive cabin in a lay-by selling large mugs of tea - N asked for a sausage roll which turned out to be several fried sausages in a bread bun, and I had an oversized toasted tea cake. Both of these rather spoiled our dinner!
Our excellent satellite navigation took us directly to Bobbie & Guthrie’s front door, arriving at about 7.30 pm. We were all pleased to see each other again, and we were shown to our « room » - the beautifully converted attic of their bungalow.
Throughout the week we were wonderfully well looked after - fed marvellous meals and picnics, and taken to so many interesting places; they had devised outings for us to all their favourite parts of Devon and Cornwall. It was obviously not a shopping trip - which in any case I didn’t really need after my two recent visits to the UK - but I did ask if I could to go to Marks & Spencer’s to get a Per Una dressing gown I wanted, so one of the first things we did on Saturday morning was visit a new shopping centre called Drake Circus, where - Guthrie timed me - I took 22 seconds to find and buy my dressing gown! Once in M & S, N decided he wanted to look for a raincoat, which took a bit longer to choose and buy; Bobbie and I fitting him in and out of various models until he settled on a nice short green Italian one.
That morning we looked at several interesting parts of Plymouth; starting from their home in Plymstock via Drake Circus to look at the Mount Batten breakwater, Drake’s Island and the Victuallers Yard - a large set of buildings dating from the 1820’s built to provide and house provisions for the Navy; mainly Bread, Beef and Beer. The buildings were now being developed as exhibition centres, flats and a waterside café where we stopped and had coffee. After lunch and what they called an « intermission » (nap for those so inclined; I sat on the sofa with my embroidery) we spent the rest of the afternoon walking in Plymbridge woods, one of their favourite haunts, and very pretty to look at; I took lots of photos.
In the evening, as well as cooking us a Thai dinner, Guthrie was busy recording both world cup rugby matches, involving France and England and trying to avoid knowing the scores until he had had time to watch them the next day. The rest of us - certainly me - were being secretly pleased that both France and England had won.
On Sunday our drive took us via Totnes - a fascinating place where there was no time to stop, and where the little craft shops and bookshops were all closed anyway, and on to Dartington, where N had been on music courses many years ago; I had never been but had heard a great deal about it. The grounds and the chapel were beautiful. They took us to the Dartington Cider Press Centre, a series of interesting shops where we all spent some time, mainly trying to find postcards, and where N chose jars of chutney, lemon curd, horseradish and brandy butter, and I bought an apple corer, ready for this year’s crop of nice round apples back in Normandy.
We then visited a delightful house and garden with the equally delightful name of Coleton Fishacre, built for the D’Oyley Carte family in the late 1920’s. After eating our picnic lunch in the grounds we toured the house, now restored by the National Trust to its former 1930’s glory with the aid of a contemporary issue of Country Life. It was a beautifully laid-out house, with lovely furniture and fittings, and one particular set of curtains I fell in love with - a large black and cream pattern reminiscent of tulips. They turned out to have been designed by Dufy and the National Trust had had to get the material reprinted from the original design blocks. In the drawing room a pianist seated at a grand piano was playing Noel Coward, Ivor Novello and Satie, and there were many photos and programmes featuring Gilbert & Sullivan operas.
In both the house and the gardens, which we walked round afterwards - on many levels and containing a gazebo and woodland - we kept wishing we could have been weekend guests there during the 1930’s. There was a path leading down the cliff to a private beach and a cove; while looking at the sea we saw a seal swimming on his own, but too quickly for me to get a picture.
On the way home we took a ferry over the river to Dartmouth, one of several ferries that week, a pretty town with coloured cottages in rows high up by the river, interesting little streets with small shops, public gardens and a view of the Naval College up on the hill. There were also some very large fierce seagulls, who turned away very shyly when I tried to photograph them. There were posters advertising visits to a nearby house where Agatha Christie had lived; I felt this explained why so many of her stories were set in seaside houses, or on trains leaving from Paddington. Since returning home we have seen a Poirot story on TV entitled « Plymouth Express »!
We then drove along Slapton Sands, a bleak strip of land between sea and inland water, where all the inhabitants had been hurriedly evacuated during WW2 so that the American forces could rehearse the Normandy landings.
Monday was a very different kind of day; N and I went by train to Bristol to visit his old university friend John. Guthrie drove us to the station, and we caught a train which had come from Penzance and was on its way to London. The first part of the journey ran along by the sea, pretty in the pale sunshine with only a few grey-haired holidaymakers to be seen, and went through Dawlish, Teignmouth, Bridgwater, Taunton and Exeter.
At Bristol Temple Meads station - an impressive grey brick edifice designed by Brunel - N and John managed to recognise each other and we were driven back to the house; a large, square early Victorian semi-detached with the front door at the side. We had lunch in a high-ceilinged dining room filled with stringed instruments - John is cellist and his wife a viola player - then retired to the drawing room where there was a coal fire, and the two men reminisced over coffee while I sat quietly with my embroidery, occasionally helping out when N forgot some detail of our present life, but the talk was mostly of lecturers and professors at Nottingham University.
John suggested we went out to have a look at a near-by part of Bristol University where he had taught for many years, so we walked through several streets of similarly large houses and reached the university buildings, surrounded by the second-hand shops and bookshops one might expect in student area, and were shown places where John had had rooms while teaching. I noticed we were walking along Whiteladies Road, which seemed a familiar name and then saw we were passing BBC Bristol where many wildlife programmes are made.
When we returned to the house John’s wife was home, back from her day’s teaching in a nearby girls’ school, so we had a quick cup of tea while she talked to N, mostly about violas, rather in the manner of an interviewer, I thought. She had certainly heard as much about N as I had about John! It was then almost time to catch our train back to Plymouth (as N said, it was rather nice being chauffeured around like this) and having invited them several times to come and see us in Normandy and/or Paris, with or without musical instruments, John took us to the station.
The journey back - on a train which had come all the way from Edinburgh - was mostly in the dark, and we ate the last sandwich available in the buffet, together with some crisps. Guthrie was waiting for us at Plymouth station, and there was some excellent vegetable soup ready for us at home.
Tuesday was the only wet day of our stay, and plans were rearranged accordingly, so this was the day we visited the Eden Project, much of which was under cover. It involved crossing from Devon into Cornwall - many jokes about crossing the border and needing our passports - via the Tamar Bridge, dated 1961, by the side of an older but equally impressive bridge, another design by Brunel.
The Eden Project was very well designed and set out; there were car parks all around the site - all named after fruits, we were in Plum 1 - and shuttle buses leading into the centre. Everything was well displayed, and for once there were more than enough toilets, washbasins and hand driers, together with notices saying all the water for flushing was recycled rainwater, and not to worry if it was discoloured, as it was quite healthy!
Two of the giant transparent domes - or Biomes - were devoted to Rainforest plants and to Temperate plants; we visited the former first. It was warm and clammy, and full not only of plants and trees, but of sample houses from different parts of the world and helpful recycling messages and information about the uses of plants, different kinds of wood and spices.
It was then time for lunch; N was pleased to have found a real Cornish pasty at last, B & G joined him, but I went and found a sandwich. In the afternoon we visited the Temperate Biome, a little more comfortable and familiar as it started with an Italian looking garden full of red geraniums in terra cotta pots, but also took in many other types of landscapes including California. After that we progressed to a third dome where we watched a very good little film describing the mission, purpose, design and creation of the Project. When we’d arrived in the morning I had seen intriguing notices with the invitation to « Knit a River », which we caught up with as we came out of the little cinema.
I never really discover the ultimate purpose of it, Bobbie said it was to raise funds but we didn’t see how. There were long, long strips of knitting in various shades of blue suspended on the walls behind a round table on which were eight or nine bundles of unfinished knitting; one just sat down and picked one up, and knitted for as long as one liked - a variety of blue and white wools, designs and stitches. Bobbie and I sat down and joined in, but only managed to get three or four rows done before the men folk wanted us to move on. I said to the woman responsible that I had only just begun knitting again after 25 years; she was intrigued and when I told her about the charity knitting she produced leaflets all about it, trying to promote as well! She agreed it was a pity knitting wasn’t as fashionable as it used to be and suggested I tried cushion covers. She also said the strips of blue knitting would be sewn together as blankets and sent when and where she thought they were needed.
As with all « visits » the last thing to see was The Shop, very large and extensive and full of all sorts of things to use, plant, read, play with, wear, eat and drink. In the end I only bought postcards, but N found four little rockery plants for the garden at LNL. We revived ourselves with cups of tea, and set off on the bus back to Plum 1 to fetch the car. On the way home we took two ferries (including one where we had to pay to get out of Cornwall; apparently it costs nothing to get in) and visited the town of Looe; very pretty and similar to Dartmouth.
Wednesday - our last day - was sunny again, and we all set off in the car towards Dartmoor, having been promised there would be no trekking involved. On the way we stopped briefly at Buckfast Abbey, with a large, solid church built between 1906 and 1938, and another shop where N bought butterscotch and lemon curd and I - once again - only bought postcards.
Our next stop was Widecombe-in-the-Moor, a tiny village with four or five gift shops all selling different kinds of Uncle Tom Cobley memorabilia; I was surprised just how much I could remember of the song, and once I had couldn’t get it out of my head! I bought two small pieces of china, so that I had a souvenir of the song, but Bobbie had already bought N a little booklet with the words, music and pictures. We also looked in the church - rather grandly called Saint Pancras - and read all about The Great Thunderstorm (or Thunderftorm) of 1638 when the church was struck by lightning.
We went on and had a very cold - but delicious - picnic in a village called Postbridge and stopped to admire (and photograph) an old stone bridge over the little river. Between all of these stopping places we covered a lot of Dartmoor itself, driving in between flocks of sheep, and various cows and ponies and being shown some of B & G‘s favourite walks; N wanted to see the Hound of the Baskervilles, but fortunately he didn’t seem to be available. The plan had been to visit Tavistock on the way home, but it was filled with stalls, parked cars and closed roads for the Goose Fair so we just had to drive on through it; a pity as it looked interesting. In the evening we went out for dinner, to a restaurant we had been shown on our first morning near the harbour, where we all ate and drank extremely well.
Our boat back from Portsmouth to Caen was due to set off at 3.15 on Thursday afternoon, so we had variously wondered whether beforehand we should shop at Sainsbury’s (rejected on the grounds that we had bought so much in National Trust shops and stocked up at Sainsbury’s in May) or visit The Mary Rose, something we both wanted to do last time we passed through Portsmouth, and even more so having seen another TV programme about it while in Plymouth.
In the event there would have been no time for either, as we took far longer than the four hours or so it had taken on the way there, having got lost when our satellite navigation told us to take the fifth exit from an extremely involved roundabout, when we weren’t sure which town we were heading for. Briefly, we went round in several circles including at one point turning the car round in a tiny village to the bemused looks of a teacher and a crocodile of small children in maroon uniforms walking back from the church to their school, obviously wondering what a this French car was doing in the middle of their quiet village.
Eventually we were back on the right track and had time to stop in a Little Chef for some lunch outside Portsmouth. We decided if and when we go to Plymouth again, it would be much better to take the ferry directly there and avoid this drive, which at best takes four hours and has no good places to stop en route.
The boat back was very large, very impressive and very empty. The crossing took about six hours in all, and we had reserved reclining chairs looking out on to the sea; very interesting as we left Portsmouth harbour (at least we saw The Victory, which made up for the lack of Mary Rose) but the blinds were closed when it got dark, before we reached Caen. There was a cinema on board, showing American films which did not appeal, but I investigated the shops and cafés and took food and newspapers back to N, who did not require much having eaten an Olympic Breakfast (whatever that might mean) at the Little Chef, and once again, was Sitting Quietly.
This meant he was rested and ready for the drive back from Caen to la Neuve-Lyre, which took about two and a quarter hours. The last stretch from Bernay was particularly strange as we usually do this in the late afternoon on our way home for tea, having filled the car at the garden centre and supermarket, and not on dark roads without a soul in sight.
The mist along the road gradually cleared, the temperature increased and after one brief stop we reached Caen early and had time to look round. N inspected the arrangements for foot passengers, ready for when - we hope - next year his Auntie Connie and cousin Delia will come to visit us from their home in the Isle of Wight, by ferry first to Portsmouth and then to Caen, and be collected by N in the car.
Despite the fine weather and calm sea, N - who does not consider himself a good sailor - sat quietly by a window for the whole voyage and refused to consider lunch. The ship was larger and better fitted than that of the Calais-Dover crossing we had taken in May, and took about three hours; the journey home was in a different ship and took far longer, but more of that later. So I had a sandwich on my own, and later went and sat in the café with a cup of tea, some chocolate and a magazine, and it suddenly felt like my afternoon tea breaks in the office canteen. I was very glad it wasn’t!
The ship docked at Portsmouth and we drove along the south coast towards the west - inconvenient as the low afternoon sun was in our eyes the whole way. We went though Dorset and into Devon, neither of which I had ever been to before; beautiful countryside with green rolling hills and golden trees, less harsh than the Normandy landscape but similar with its cows, apple trees and adverts for cider and cream. I saw a signpost down a lane to the sea marked Farm Holidays and thought of the Famous Five. We were accompanied by lovely English music on BBC Radio 3 all the way, but couldn’t really find anywhere to stop for tea as we were neither on motorways nor in town centres. In the end we found a primitive cabin in a lay-by selling large mugs of tea - N asked for a sausage roll which turned out to be several fried sausages in a bread bun, and I had an oversized toasted tea cake. Both of these rather spoiled our dinner!
Our excellent satellite navigation took us directly to Bobbie & Guthrie’s front door, arriving at about 7.30 pm. We were all pleased to see each other again, and we were shown to our « room » - the beautifully converted attic of their bungalow.
Throughout the week we were wonderfully well looked after - fed marvellous meals and picnics, and taken to so many interesting places; they had devised outings for us to all their favourite parts of Devon and Cornwall. It was obviously not a shopping trip - which in any case I didn’t really need after my two recent visits to the UK - but I did ask if I could to go to Marks & Spencer’s to get a Per Una dressing gown I wanted, so one of the first things we did on Saturday morning was visit a new shopping centre called Drake Circus, where - Guthrie timed me - I took 22 seconds to find and buy my dressing gown! Once in M & S, N decided he wanted to look for a raincoat, which took a bit longer to choose and buy; Bobbie and I fitting him in and out of various models until he settled on a nice short green Italian one.
That morning we looked at several interesting parts of Plymouth; starting from their home in Plymstock via Drake Circus to look at the Mount Batten breakwater, Drake’s Island and the Victuallers Yard - a large set of buildings dating from the 1820’s built to provide and house provisions for the Navy; mainly Bread, Beef and Beer. The buildings were now being developed as exhibition centres, flats and a waterside café where we stopped and had coffee. After lunch and what they called an « intermission » (nap for those so inclined; I sat on the sofa with my embroidery) we spent the rest of the afternoon walking in Plymbridge woods, one of their favourite haunts, and very pretty to look at; I took lots of photos.
In the evening, as well as cooking us a Thai dinner, Guthrie was busy recording both world cup rugby matches, involving France and England and trying to avoid knowing the scores until he had had time to watch them the next day. The rest of us - certainly me - were being secretly pleased that both France and England had won.
On Sunday our drive took us via Totnes - a fascinating place where there was no time to stop, and where the little craft shops and bookshops were all closed anyway, and on to Dartington, where N had been on music courses many years ago; I had never been but had heard a great deal about it. The grounds and the chapel were beautiful. They took us to the Dartington Cider Press Centre, a series of interesting shops where we all spent some time, mainly trying to find postcards, and where N chose jars of chutney, lemon curd, horseradish and brandy butter, and I bought an apple corer, ready for this year’s crop of nice round apples back in Normandy.
We then visited a delightful house and garden with the equally delightful name of Coleton Fishacre, built for the D’Oyley Carte family in the late 1920’s. After eating our picnic lunch in the grounds we toured the house, now restored by the National Trust to its former 1930’s glory with the aid of a contemporary issue of Country Life. It was a beautifully laid-out house, with lovely furniture and fittings, and one particular set of curtains I fell in love with - a large black and cream pattern reminiscent of tulips. They turned out to have been designed by Dufy and the National Trust had had to get the material reprinted from the original design blocks. In the drawing room a pianist seated at a grand piano was playing Noel Coward, Ivor Novello and Satie, and there were many photos and programmes featuring Gilbert & Sullivan operas.
In both the house and the gardens, which we walked round afterwards - on many levels and containing a gazebo and woodland - we kept wishing we could have been weekend guests there during the 1930’s. There was a path leading down the cliff to a private beach and a cove; while looking at the sea we saw a seal swimming on his own, but too quickly for me to get a picture.
On the way home we took a ferry over the river to Dartmouth, one of several ferries that week, a pretty town with coloured cottages in rows high up by the river, interesting little streets with small shops, public gardens and a view of the Naval College up on the hill. There were also some very large fierce seagulls, who turned away very shyly when I tried to photograph them. There were posters advertising visits to a nearby house where Agatha Christie had lived; I felt this explained why so many of her stories were set in seaside houses, or on trains leaving from Paddington. Since returning home we have seen a Poirot story on TV entitled « Plymouth Express »!
We then drove along Slapton Sands, a bleak strip of land between sea and inland water, where all the inhabitants had been hurriedly evacuated during WW2 so that the American forces could rehearse the Normandy landings.
Monday was a very different kind of day; N and I went by train to Bristol to visit his old university friend John. Guthrie drove us to the station, and we caught a train which had come from Penzance and was on its way to London. The first part of the journey ran along by the sea, pretty in the pale sunshine with only a few grey-haired holidaymakers to be seen, and went through Dawlish, Teignmouth, Bridgwater, Taunton and Exeter.
At Bristol Temple Meads station - an impressive grey brick edifice designed by Brunel - N and John managed to recognise each other and we were driven back to the house; a large, square early Victorian semi-detached with the front door at the side. We had lunch in a high-ceilinged dining room filled with stringed instruments - John is cellist and his wife a viola player - then retired to the drawing room where there was a coal fire, and the two men reminisced over coffee while I sat quietly with my embroidery, occasionally helping out when N forgot some detail of our present life, but the talk was mostly of lecturers and professors at Nottingham University.
John suggested we went out to have a look at a near-by part of Bristol University where he had taught for many years, so we walked through several streets of similarly large houses and reached the university buildings, surrounded by the second-hand shops and bookshops one might expect in student area, and were shown places where John had had rooms while teaching. I noticed we were walking along Whiteladies Road, which seemed a familiar name and then saw we were passing BBC Bristol where many wildlife programmes are made.
When we returned to the house John’s wife was home, back from her day’s teaching in a nearby girls’ school, so we had a quick cup of tea while she talked to N, mostly about violas, rather in the manner of an interviewer, I thought. She had certainly heard as much about N as I had about John! It was then almost time to catch our train back to Plymouth (as N said, it was rather nice being chauffeured around like this) and having invited them several times to come and see us in Normandy and/or Paris, with or without musical instruments, John took us to the station.
The journey back - on a train which had come all the way from Edinburgh - was mostly in the dark, and we ate the last sandwich available in the buffet, together with some crisps. Guthrie was waiting for us at Plymouth station, and there was some excellent vegetable soup ready for us at home.
Tuesday was the only wet day of our stay, and plans were rearranged accordingly, so this was the day we visited the Eden Project, much of which was under cover. It involved crossing from Devon into Cornwall - many jokes about crossing the border and needing our passports - via the Tamar Bridge, dated 1961, by the side of an older but equally impressive bridge, another design by Brunel.
The Eden Project was very well designed and set out; there were car parks all around the site - all named after fruits, we were in Plum 1 - and shuttle buses leading into the centre. Everything was well displayed, and for once there were more than enough toilets, washbasins and hand driers, together with notices saying all the water for flushing was recycled rainwater, and not to worry if it was discoloured, as it was quite healthy!
Two of the giant transparent domes - or Biomes - were devoted to Rainforest plants and to Temperate plants; we visited the former first. It was warm and clammy, and full not only of plants and trees, but of sample houses from different parts of the world and helpful recycling messages and information about the uses of plants, different kinds of wood and spices.
It was then time for lunch; N was pleased to have found a real Cornish pasty at last, B & G joined him, but I went and found a sandwich. In the afternoon we visited the Temperate Biome, a little more comfortable and familiar as it started with an Italian looking garden full of red geraniums in terra cotta pots, but also took in many other types of landscapes including California. After that we progressed to a third dome where we watched a very good little film describing the mission, purpose, design and creation of the Project. When we’d arrived in the morning I had seen intriguing notices with the invitation to « Knit a River », which we caught up with as we came out of the little cinema.
I never really discover the ultimate purpose of it, Bobbie said it was to raise funds but we didn’t see how. There were long, long strips of knitting in various shades of blue suspended on the walls behind a round table on which were eight or nine bundles of unfinished knitting; one just sat down and picked one up, and knitted for as long as one liked - a variety of blue and white wools, designs and stitches. Bobbie and I sat down and joined in, but only managed to get three or four rows done before the men folk wanted us to move on. I said to the woman responsible that I had only just begun knitting again after 25 years; she was intrigued and when I told her about the charity knitting she produced leaflets all about it, trying to promote as well! She agreed it was a pity knitting wasn’t as fashionable as it used to be and suggested I tried cushion covers. She also said the strips of blue knitting would be sewn together as blankets and sent when and where she thought they were needed.
As with all « visits » the last thing to see was The Shop, very large and extensive and full of all sorts of things to use, plant, read, play with, wear, eat and drink. In the end I only bought postcards, but N found four little rockery plants for the garden at LNL. We revived ourselves with cups of tea, and set off on the bus back to Plum 1 to fetch the car. On the way home we took two ferries (including one where we had to pay to get out of Cornwall; apparently it costs nothing to get in) and visited the town of Looe; very pretty and similar to Dartmouth.
Wednesday - our last day - was sunny again, and we all set off in the car towards Dartmoor, having been promised there would be no trekking involved. On the way we stopped briefly at Buckfast Abbey, with a large, solid church built between 1906 and 1938, and another shop where N bought butterscotch and lemon curd and I - once again - only bought postcards.
Our next stop was Widecombe-in-the-Moor, a tiny village with four or five gift shops all selling different kinds of Uncle Tom Cobley memorabilia; I was surprised just how much I could remember of the song, and once I had couldn’t get it out of my head! I bought two small pieces of china, so that I had a souvenir of the song, but Bobbie had already bought N a little booklet with the words, music and pictures. We also looked in the church - rather grandly called Saint Pancras - and read all about The Great Thunderstorm (or Thunderftorm) of 1638 when the church was struck by lightning.
We went on and had a very cold - but delicious - picnic in a village called Postbridge and stopped to admire (and photograph) an old stone bridge over the little river. Between all of these stopping places we covered a lot of Dartmoor itself, driving in between flocks of sheep, and various cows and ponies and being shown some of B & G‘s favourite walks; N wanted to see the Hound of the Baskervilles, but fortunately he didn’t seem to be available. The plan had been to visit Tavistock on the way home, but it was filled with stalls, parked cars and closed roads for the Goose Fair so we just had to drive on through it; a pity as it looked interesting. In the evening we went out for dinner, to a restaurant we had been shown on our first morning near the harbour, where we all ate and drank extremely well.
Our boat back from Portsmouth to Caen was due to set off at 3.15 on Thursday afternoon, so we had variously wondered whether beforehand we should shop at Sainsbury’s (rejected on the grounds that we had bought so much in National Trust shops and stocked up at Sainsbury’s in May) or visit The Mary Rose, something we both wanted to do last time we passed through Portsmouth, and even more so having seen another TV programme about it while in Plymouth.
In the event there would have been no time for either, as we took far longer than the four hours or so it had taken on the way there, having got lost when our satellite navigation told us to take the fifth exit from an extremely involved roundabout, when we weren’t sure which town we were heading for. Briefly, we went round in several circles including at one point turning the car round in a tiny village to the bemused looks of a teacher and a crocodile of small children in maroon uniforms walking back from the church to their school, obviously wondering what a this French car was doing in the middle of their quiet village.
Eventually we were back on the right track and had time to stop in a Little Chef for some lunch outside Portsmouth. We decided if and when we go to Plymouth again, it would be much better to take the ferry directly there and avoid this drive, which at best takes four hours and has no good places to stop en route.
The boat back was very large, very impressive and very empty. The crossing took about six hours in all, and we had reserved reclining chairs looking out on to the sea; very interesting as we left Portsmouth harbour (at least we saw The Victory, which made up for the lack of Mary Rose) but the blinds were closed when it got dark, before we reached Caen. There was a cinema on board, showing American films which did not appeal, but I investigated the shops and cafés and took food and newspapers back to N, who did not require much having eaten an Olympic Breakfast (whatever that might mean) at the Little Chef, and once again, was Sitting Quietly.
This meant he was rested and ready for the drive back from Caen to la Neuve-Lyre, which took about two and a quarter hours. The last stretch from Bernay was particularly strange as we usually do this in the late afternoon on our way home for tea, having filled the car at the garden centre and supermarket, and not on dark roads without a soul in sight.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Monday 1 October 2007
Since we came back to Normandy last Monday afternoon (once the window at Saint-Denis had been finally and properly mended) there have been the usual house and garden catching-up jobs, the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.
The week started fine and warm, but then one afternoon there was a terrible hailstorm after lunch just as I was getting the washing in, and it got very dark and cold and we had to put the heating on in the middle of the afternoon. The mornings are getting darker too; it’s now barely light when we wake up at around 7.45.
The roses are all over and the hydrangeas almost all gone too; the last three are in a vase in the grande pièce. The big flower bed still has some colour in it; several large clumps of tall mauve asters rather like large Michaelmas daisies are still going very strong and there are a few of the very determined nameless yellow flowers too. Yesterday I planted miniature daffodils and narcissi in the four urns by the steps of the wine cellar - I always love that time when you can get rid of the straggling end-of-summer plants and leave the pots all tidy with a neat cover of dark earth, almost as though someone has been put to bed under there to sleep until spring. There are some left over which I want to put in a terra cotta trough brought from Cambridge.
Although we have now eaten the last of our potatoes (a lot of the crop rotted because of the wet early summer) we are still eating our own lettuces, both red and green, and have harvested lots of wonderful onions, and two jars full of dried Italian beans. There are still little Spanish peppers to come, always lots of beetroot as usual (N is making beetroot soup again as I write, even though the freezer is full of it; I think we shall have to start eating compulsory beetroot soup at least once a week.) We had turnips and carrots for lunch yesterday, and our one aubergine together with some other roasted vegetables and pasta last week.
On Saturday N cooked a wonderful dish for dinner, a recipe from a French chef’s TV programme inspired by some fish we found in the supermarket - small pieces of various kinds of fish for cooking quickly in a frying pan. Its full title was Méli-mélo de Poisson au Citron Vert and it included thin strips of carrot and courgette, cream and the juice and zest of limes; the kitchen was full of the smell! It looked and tasted absolutely wonderful, just the kind of thing I would have ordered in a restaurant.
Yesterday we picked our apples - after having thought there were none at all on the tree this year, we began noticing surreptitious large round green ones here and there and managed with the aid of the wonderful telescopic tool to pick a whole basketful, a nice manageable amount. They are much larger and rounder than last year, almost as though they were from an entirely different tree; N thinks it is perhaps due to his careful pruning. We have put them carefully spaced out on sheets of paper on the shelves in the first outhouse.
I have made another batch of marrow and ginger jam, using up two giant marrows which were waiting patiently in the outhouse. We also had Marrow Pie again for the last time this season - no more marrows or potatoes.
The swallows have definitely left without saying goodbye; we think they probably went while we were away at the end of August. The car and garage are much cleaner and N is still threatening to remove the offending nest.
After the hailstorm last week the new doorstep outside the verandah was still very wet, and N decided this was because the drainpipe beside it was faulty and overflowing. He then had fun designing and building an ingenious system of pipes to divert the water, taking the rain from the verandah roof along and under the flowerbed next to it and, by means of a series of carefully drilled holes, watering the rhododendrons. We have received a large estimate from Monsieur A for taking the rain from the other down pipe (currently just going into the ground) out to the road via pipes constructed under the garden; N has avoided the need for this by means of a similar under flowerbed pipe at the other end of the rhododendrons. We are still waiting for the bill for the drain work he and Guillaume did two weeks ago, and will then raise the question of the heating service and the replacement trap on the terrace, both of which have been so far ignored!
We’ve not heard from either Monsieur B the TV engineer or Monsieur P the carpenter, but are letting them know we will be going away in a few days. This is our trip to Plymouth to see Bobbie and Guthrie, which we are both very much looking forward to, a drive to Caen then boat to Portsmouth, and a drive along the other western part of the south coast which we didn’t visit on our trip in May.
Over the last few weeks N has been getting in touch with an old university friend with whom he’d had no contact for years, and who lives in Bristol, so there is a possibility of our going there for a visit while we are in Plymouth. Dates are currently being discussed, and the idea of going by train instead of car.
Now that the drain pipe work is all finished, N has returned to plastering the outhouse - he reminds me a little of Mr Toad, of whom we are currently reading on Sunday afternoons, as he switches from one new enthusiasm to another, forgetting all about the one before; from brick-laying to carpentry to plastering to plumbing and then back to plastering.
On Thursday afternoon we went shopping in Bernay for the first time in a long time; it was so long since we had been to Vive le Jardin! that all the garden furniture which I was still thinking about had long since been put away and preparations for Christmas were in full swing: the building of several large set pieces, and piles of decorations, and crèche scenes ready to go on display. We did manage to get bulbs however; my little daffodils and narcissi and N’s bluebells which have now been planted in the grass near the birch tree in hopes of a great swathe next spring. On the same afternoon N got all his pipes, yet more plaster and various plastering accessories from Monsieur Bricolage, I bought more jam jars there as we had almost run out, and also - while N was choosing all his things - went along to Petite Italie and bought lots of lovely things to eat, including some wonderful gorgonzola just delivered from Rungis that morning. (Rungis is the great wholesale food market just outside Paris.)
Tuesday 2 October 2007
It rained very hard last night and this morning and N was variously pleased to see that his under flowerbed watering system was working well - water gushing out at intervals at the foot of the rhododendrons, and not pleased to find that water was still coming in under the verandah door, despite his new step. He got round this, at least temporarily, by putting yet another layer of wooden threshold plank in place, and drilling a deep hole in the step just where most of the water collected, so that it can drain away down into the garden. I think that (a) this is the kind of weather we have to expect in Normandy and (b) the water in the verandah problem won’t be solved until we have a new door with a storm board in place across the bottom.
Our village newspaper shop (also very useful for cards, sellotape, stationery, dry cleaning and photo developing) has moved further down the road to new premises in between the traiteur and the bank. Its new doors and windows were being installed yesterday, but I haven’t visited it yet. I shall miss seeing their posters outside advertising gossip magazines and their tales of tragedy, horror, illness, death and disappointment. (I could still see them if I walked that far of course, but the old shop was in between the house and the boulangerie, so I used to see them every day.) I have no idea yet what will happen to the old shop, but I should think the traiteur will get more trade.
I have recently taken up knitting again, after a gap of about 25 years; I had been looking at knitting kits when I was with Madeleine in Paris earlier in the year, and then she found me a free kit in London to knit for charity. I was pleased to find that I hadn’t forgotten how to do it at all, and now that it is all over and posted off to the charity in question, am thinking about embroidery again. The tiny cross stitch kit I was working on while at Simone’s house last spring is really very tiny, only possible at home under a good lamp I think, so have started on a larger kit I found for 1 euro at a brocante sale, which has the advantage of being entirely red thread on white cloth. A classic sampler style, square with letters, numbers and little pictures. I am finding it just as addictive as I always used to, and think I shall take it with me while away visiting next week. And once it’s finished I know exactly the shop in L’Aigle where I can get it framed!
Wednesday 3 October 2007
Yesterday afternoon I made French Onion Soup (complete with thick slices of bread and toasted cheese) partly to use some of our wonderful onions and partly to get some use out of the « Gratinée » soup bowls we bought at the antiques barn some months ago. The best recipe I could find was in Delia Smith, and it took a long time, despite slicing all the onions in the food processor. The result was very good however, and the evening suitably cold and wet, which made it worth while, the sort of evening when you need hot warming soup. There is a lot left over for the freezer, and can be used when we next have guests on a cold day.
N had picked all the little Spanish peppers, and I tried to cook them as best I could in the way we had eaten them in Barcelona, roasted in oil and salt, but when we tasted them we got a shock, they were very hot and spicy indeed, more like chillies! One each was more than enough, and we both needed large glasses of water and emergency servings of ice cream. So the seeds N bought - although they looked like what we had eaten - must have been something quite different. I have put the rest of them, roasted, in a large jar and covered them in olive oil, like a sort of home-made Italian antipasti. Perhaps they will be OK in small quantities with ham or salami…..
Today I have been to the village traiteur, where there was talk of the new paper shop next door; they seemed to think it was working quite well, despite being just a converted house and rather small and dark. I was interested to hear another customer saying to the proprietress that she thought it would bring more trade to the traiteur, as it was just what I thought. Another customer was ordering a dish for Saturday, and asking for advice saying « Je suis troublée dans mon menu » which amused me; literally « I am troubled in my menu » or « I’m having trouble with my menu. » I know the feeling.
Since we came back to Normandy last Monday afternoon (once the window at Saint-Denis had been finally and properly mended) there have been the usual house and garden catching-up jobs, the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.
The week started fine and warm, but then one afternoon there was a terrible hailstorm after lunch just as I was getting the washing in, and it got very dark and cold and we had to put the heating on in the middle of the afternoon. The mornings are getting darker too; it’s now barely light when we wake up at around 7.45.
The roses are all over and the hydrangeas almost all gone too; the last three are in a vase in the grande pièce. The big flower bed still has some colour in it; several large clumps of tall mauve asters rather like large Michaelmas daisies are still going very strong and there are a few of the very determined nameless yellow flowers too. Yesterday I planted miniature daffodils and narcissi in the four urns by the steps of the wine cellar - I always love that time when you can get rid of the straggling end-of-summer plants and leave the pots all tidy with a neat cover of dark earth, almost as though someone has been put to bed under there to sleep until spring. There are some left over which I want to put in a terra cotta trough brought from Cambridge.
Although we have now eaten the last of our potatoes (a lot of the crop rotted because of the wet early summer) we are still eating our own lettuces, both red and green, and have harvested lots of wonderful onions, and two jars full of dried Italian beans. There are still little Spanish peppers to come, always lots of beetroot as usual (N is making beetroot soup again as I write, even though the freezer is full of it; I think we shall have to start eating compulsory beetroot soup at least once a week.) We had turnips and carrots for lunch yesterday, and our one aubergine together with some other roasted vegetables and pasta last week.
On Saturday N cooked a wonderful dish for dinner, a recipe from a French chef’s TV programme inspired by some fish we found in the supermarket - small pieces of various kinds of fish for cooking quickly in a frying pan. Its full title was Méli-mélo de Poisson au Citron Vert and it included thin strips of carrot and courgette, cream and the juice and zest of limes; the kitchen was full of the smell! It looked and tasted absolutely wonderful, just the kind of thing I would have ordered in a restaurant.
Yesterday we picked our apples - after having thought there were none at all on the tree this year, we began noticing surreptitious large round green ones here and there and managed with the aid of the wonderful telescopic tool to pick a whole basketful, a nice manageable amount. They are much larger and rounder than last year, almost as though they were from an entirely different tree; N thinks it is perhaps due to his careful pruning. We have put them carefully spaced out on sheets of paper on the shelves in the first outhouse.
I have made another batch of marrow and ginger jam, using up two giant marrows which were waiting patiently in the outhouse. We also had Marrow Pie again for the last time this season - no more marrows or potatoes.
The swallows have definitely left without saying goodbye; we think they probably went while we were away at the end of August. The car and garage are much cleaner and N is still threatening to remove the offending nest.
After the hailstorm last week the new doorstep outside the verandah was still very wet, and N decided this was because the drainpipe beside it was faulty and overflowing. He then had fun designing and building an ingenious system of pipes to divert the water, taking the rain from the verandah roof along and under the flowerbed next to it and, by means of a series of carefully drilled holes, watering the rhododendrons. We have received a large estimate from Monsieur A for taking the rain from the other down pipe (currently just going into the ground) out to the road via pipes constructed under the garden; N has avoided the need for this by means of a similar under flowerbed pipe at the other end of the rhododendrons. We are still waiting for the bill for the drain work he and Guillaume did two weeks ago, and will then raise the question of the heating service and the replacement trap on the terrace, both of which have been so far ignored!
We’ve not heard from either Monsieur B the TV engineer or Monsieur P the carpenter, but are letting them know we will be going away in a few days. This is our trip to Plymouth to see Bobbie and Guthrie, which we are both very much looking forward to, a drive to Caen then boat to Portsmouth, and a drive along the other western part of the south coast which we didn’t visit on our trip in May.
Over the last few weeks N has been getting in touch with an old university friend with whom he’d had no contact for years, and who lives in Bristol, so there is a possibility of our going there for a visit while we are in Plymouth. Dates are currently being discussed, and the idea of going by train instead of car.
Now that the drain pipe work is all finished, N has returned to plastering the outhouse - he reminds me a little of Mr Toad, of whom we are currently reading on Sunday afternoons, as he switches from one new enthusiasm to another, forgetting all about the one before; from brick-laying to carpentry to plastering to plumbing and then back to plastering.
On Thursday afternoon we went shopping in Bernay for the first time in a long time; it was so long since we had been to Vive le Jardin! that all the garden furniture which I was still thinking about had long since been put away and preparations for Christmas were in full swing: the building of several large set pieces, and piles of decorations, and crèche scenes ready to go on display. We did manage to get bulbs however; my little daffodils and narcissi and N’s bluebells which have now been planted in the grass near the birch tree in hopes of a great swathe next spring. On the same afternoon N got all his pipes, yet more plaster and various plastering accessories from Monsieur Bricolage, I bought more jam jars there as we had almost run out, and also - while N was choosing all his things - went along to Petite Italie and bought lots of lovely things to eat, including some wonderful gorgonzola just delivered from Rungis that morning. (Rungis is the great wholesale food market just outside Paris.)
Tuesday 2 October 2007
It rained very hard last night and this morning and N was variously pleased to see that his under flowerbed watering system was working well - water gushing out at intervals at the foot of the rhododendrons, and not pleased to find that water was still coming in under the verandah door, despite his new step. He got round this, at least temporarily, by putting yet another layer of wooden threshold plank in place, and drilling a deep hole in the step just where most of the water collected, so that it can drain away down into the garden. I think that (a) this is the kind of weather we have to expect in Normandy and (b) the water in the verandah problem won’t be solved until we have a new door with a storm board in place across the bottom.
Our village newspaper shop (also very useful for cards, sellotape, stationery, dry cleaning and photo developing) has moved further down the road to new premises in between the traiteur and the bank. Its new doors and windows were being installed yesterday, but I haven’t visited it yet. I shall miss seeing their posters outside advertising gossip magazines and their tales of tragedy, horror, illness, death and disappointment. (I could still see them if I walked that far of course, but the old shop was in between the house and the boulangerie, so I used to see them every day.) I have no idea yet what will happen to the old shop, but I should think the traiteur will get more trade.
I have recently taken up knitting again, after a gap of about 25 years; I had been looking at knitting kits when I was with Madeleine in Paris earlier in the year, and then she found me a free kit in London to knit for charity. I was pleased to find that I hadn’t forgotten how to do it at all, and now that it is all over and posted off to the charity in question, am thinking about embroidery again. The tiny cross stitch kit I was working on while at Simone’s house last spring is really very tiny, only possible at home under a good lamp I think, so have started on a larger kit I found for 1 euro at a brocante sale, which has the advantage of being entirely red thread on white cloth. A classic sampler style, square with letters, numbers and little pictures. I am finding it just as addictive as I always used to, and think I shall take it with me while away visiting next week. And once it’s finished I know exactly the shop in L’Aigle where I can get it framed!
Wednesday 3 October 2007
Yesterday afternoon I made French Onion Soup (complete with thick slices of bread and toasted cheese) partly to use some of our wonderful onions and partly to get some use out of the « Gratinée » soup bowls we bought at the antiques barn some months ago. The best recipe I could find was in Delia Smith, and it took a long time, despite slicing all the onions in the food processor. The result was very good however, and the evening suitably cold and wet, which made it worth while, the sort of evening when you need hot warming soup. There is a lot left over for the freezer, and can be used when we next have guests on a cold day.
N had picked all the little Spanish peppers, and I tried to cook them as best I could in the way we had eaten them in Barcelona, roasted in oil and salt, but when we tasted them we got a shock, they were very hot and spicy indeed, more like chillies! One each was more than enough, and we both needed large glasses of water and emergency servings of ice cream. So the seeds N bought - although they looked like what we had eaten - must have been something quite different. I have put the rest of them, roasted, in a large jar and covered them in olive oil, like a sort of home-made Italian antipasti. Perhaps they will be OK in small quantities with ham or salami…..
Today I have been to the village traiteur, where there was talk of the new paper shop next door; they seemed to think it was working quite well, despite being just a converted house and rather small and dark. I was interested to hear another customer saying to the proprietress that she thought it would bring more trade to the traiteur, as it was just what I thought. Another customer was ordering a dish for Saturday, and asking for advice saying « Je suis troublée dans mon menu » which amused me; literally « I am troubled in my menu » or « I’m having trouble with my menu. » I know the feeling.
