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.
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 6:44 AM 
