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. »
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 9:53 AM 
