Tuesday 25 September 2007

The last of the summer wine...

Last guests, last trips to the dump, last journey up to Quimper before accompanying the removal van, last of the sun or so it seems, it's getting very chilly.


My chickens and the duck went yesterday. People are so nice, the baker in Verdes (from whom I never ever buy bread but who tutoies me and calls me Caroline) sent her brother to catch them up with no help from me and take them off to his place. The barn is very silent...


I must go round looking for stray eggs so that they don't go rotten and surprise the Parisiens should they step on them!


The curtains have come down in my bedroom and bathroom and gone to the cleaners.


I've come to an agreement with the removal people and am not so worried about not having enough room in their truck.


So things are falling into place, and I can even take time out to write my blog.


The sun coming through the sitting room window this morning cast a lovely shadow from the bouddha on my mantelpiece. I didn't add sepia or anything, it was just like that.

Saturday 22 September 2007

Back from England



I travelled to England betwen 13 and 17 September to visit the family. My Tatie Zizon was there from the States. I'd not seen her for quite a few years, so we good fun catching up and having a giggle! Nicholas came down from London by train on Friday evening. Nicholas, Zizon and I went down to Weymouth for a seafood lunch on Saturday. My GPS got us there with no errors except just the last few metres... What a lovely restaurant - "The Crab House" off Portland Bill. Had to book, but it was a beautiful sunny, hot day and we ate outside with a view of the sun on the sea. That's what life is about. Nicholas and I had the most enormous crabs I have ever seen, and Zizon had a very large sole. Plus ice cream and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.











Back to a roast lamb supper - all we do is eat in our family - then out on Sunday to Little Barwick near Yeovil for lunch to celebrate Zizon's 86th birthday. I didn't feel that good in the evening, so I forewent supper!




Grama cooking lamb and 3 veg for 5 people aged 90!



Nicholas and I left on Monday morning, I drove him (sorry, he drove me!) to Heathrow where he could take the tube into London to work, and I continued on to Dover to get the ferry. After a weekend of wonderful weather in England, it poured once I got back to France.







I stopped in Paris and had dinner with Yves at the Nouveau Village Tao Tao on Boulevard Vincent Auriol, 13e. We hadn't been there for a while, and the menu and the cook had changed, it was even better than before. I had a salade de pattes de poulet, my favourite dish, and the waiter as usual gave me a lecture before writing my order down to the effect that it was real chickens' feet, did I know? When I got out of the restaurant, I found that some hooligan had broken all the wing mirrors of the cars down my side of the street, so I had to get out of Paris half blind, not quite seeing where I was going.

Back to clearing out and trips to the dump before my move which is getting frighteningly close... and I have people staying in B&B this week which takes up time.

It's Yves birthday today, and my brother Michael's. Yves couldn't come down 'cos it's the weekend. Soon he'll have to take the plane to see me...!

Monday 10 September 2007

So I finally did it...

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while now. Today seems to be a good time, when I have a month left before leaving Le Mée and setting out on another course... Not easy with the 'r' missing from my computer, there seems to be an 'r' in every word I want to write. So if some of my prose is a bit shaky, just put in an 'r' or two and it'll probably look better!

Yesterday Yves and I went to the Marché Bio at Boursay where I did pottery classes all last year. We left around 11h00 and got there in time to book a table at the village restaurant. Visited the atelier and saw my frog (which was gigantic, but has much diminished in the 'cooking process'), and my lion's head fountain which looks good. Lots of long-haired, besandled bio people, une race à part, but quite good fun. Until the meal, which is honestly the worst I have EVER eaten, school and various canteens included, and took 2 hours because service was so awful... It is a great tribute to Yves that he kept his calm!
Once home, Jean-Claude was in the woodshed clearing things out for me, so I had to go and help, which I didn't really feel like doing because I was trying to digest my dreadful lunch. But between us all, we got the barn cleared and sorted, I just have to go to the dump with several loads. It all lasted so long, and I was so late getting dinner, that Yves stayed overnight, although he meant to go home Sunday evening, and only left at 9 this morning.
The carpenters turned up at 11h00 and have detached Cécile's painting from the kitchen and replaced it with a sheet of plywood, and have done a really fantastic door for Nicholas' shower. Quite regret leaving all that for someone else. It look good.