HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012

It's been so long since I last posted, I'll try to do better this year. As I write, the rain is teeming down, but it is really mild, enough to go out without a coat if it weren't for the rain. I've just got back to the Finistère from spending Christmas in London with Nicholas, who spoilt me rotten with good food, comfort and tlc. I nearly didn't get there at all, since my Belgian housesitter was caught up in the Belgian general strike and couldn't make it. Luckily a very kind friend here in Quimper moved into my house with his son to spend Christmas here and look after my animals.

And I had a bit of a problem getting back from London too, my plane arrived 40 minutes late at Charles de Gaulle, I had to wait 35 minutes for my luggage (which one has to reclaim and transfer oneself when leaving from Orly) so I missed my connecting flight, the last one to Quimper that day. Endless queueing, explanations, transfer to hotel for the night, paid by Air France luckily, so having left Nicholas' flat at 10am Thursday, I didn't get home till 11am Friday (Tokyo-Paris would have been quicker!).

No festivities for New Year, just a dozen oysters and a glass of good white wine, followed by duck breast and chips. Quite an acceptable end to the year.

One important thing I did in November was to go down to Paris for the evening/night for Paul McCartney's one and only concert in France 2011, first time I'd seen him live. Nicholas came over from London for the evening to accompany me, very jet set, and we had a very good evening. Sir Paul is very good value, he performed for three whole hours with incredible energy and good humour. His voice hasn't changed, and he is very fit, thanks to a vegetarian diet I expect. But as I said to Nicholas, easier to be a vegetarian when you have a cook to do it for you!

In the last three months, I have been quite active in the creative sector, but I'm only just starting to write it up on my arty blog http://crafthanded.wordpress.com . Do go there now and sign up to receive blog entries in your email box, like that you can keep up with what I'm doing effortlessly.

I've also started a new blog today, in which I am going to try to keep up a post a day. It's called One French Word http://onefrenchword.wordpress.com . You can sign up for that one too! I need the encouragement of having followers. What I've decided to do is to take a French word a day, explain its meaning and pronunciation, and give a few examples of how to use it. BUT it's going to be a FOOD word, and I shall attach to it a recipe and hopefully a photo. This should be of interest to far more people than just vocabulary and grammar. Tell me how you find it.

Happy New Year !

OUT AND ABOUT

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, and was waiting for photos of menhirs and stuff, but I can't get hold of them so I'm publishing this very late, without changing anything.



The weather still isn't really summery, we have the occasional few hours of sunshine, but mostly it's a bit grey and cold. Yves was here for a week and we got out quite a lot considering. We took a picnic to the estuary of the Aulne at a place called Le Passage, near Trégarvan;  it was beautiful and very quiet.

We also went back to the Montagne St Michel to get another shot at the chapel, the scenery around there is so complex, so many greens.

Last Tuesday, we went for a walk with Ellie around the Anse St Laurent, near Concarneau, she loves that walk through the forest with all its smells, and I love it because you follow the sea most of the way. I took some good photos of mosses.

We also went to three exhibitions of paintings, there are lots around here at the moment. One was at Bénodet, of paintings by official Peintres de la Marine. Some were absolutely wonderful. And we went to the Musée des Beaux Arts in Quimper to see Meijer de Haan, a contemporary of Gauguin, who lived around here with him for a while. That was very good too. And on Tuesday afternoon, we went to the Manoir du Moustoir, about ten minutes from here, where there was an exhibition of Mathurin Méheut, and a contemporary painter called Bonnot, and a few others, wonderful stuff, all so different.

de Haan

We ate out several times, once by the sea at Kerity, Chez Emma (Le Doris), no surprises there, all good fresh fish and friendly service, and at Ty Coz on the northern edge of Quimper, which I had wanted to try for ages. Nice place, quiet, tables well spaced apart, a fairly short menu but good food. I had a feuilletée de petits gris and mushrooms with garlic butter and Yves had smoked trout with a millefeuille of tapenade and frothy pea mixture, then porcelet confit dans son jus pendant 7 heures, which was simply wonderful, with lots of veg for a change, and pièce de boeuf which was also declared very good.  And then profiteroles and crème brûlée. Menu at 29€. There were much more complicated menus. The drink was very expensive though. Apéritif was exorbitant, but we had a good Chinon.  The only fault to be found was that the carafe of tap water was strongly javelisé, they should invest in filter jugs!

We also went out hunting for prehistoric burial chambers, unsuccessfully at first, but later, having parked the car roughly where the plan said we should find one, we walked for ages along an ancient sunken track, and eventually, having asked an elderly local lady for directions, found it in a field of wheat. There are so many around Brittany, that the farmers don't pay them much notice, and often they are covered in brambles and surrounded with crops. Only the more important ones, or those standing in places that cannot be cultivated, are kept clear of vegetation.

I've done a teeny bit of work on the bathroom, painted the ceiling, one coat at least, before I ran out of paint and had to go up to Audierne today to get more. Looks good though, pale shell pink instead of that awful varnished wood colour.

I've finished another painting,  of a hypothetical bit of the Finistère coast in winter at low tide, with a lighthouse and a village right in the distance, seen through pine branches. It all sounds complicated, and it is, far too complicated. I'm not happy with the layout or the subject matter. But it's all in a good cause, and  each time I learn something.

I picked a large bunch of wild flowers, with a bit of russet fern and some reddened dock leaves, on my way back from Audierne this afternoon, when I stopped to walk Ellie a bit. I'm going to try and still life it tomorrow. I put them in the silver christening mug I brought back from Compton last time I went.

COUCHSURFERS

I joined Couchsurfers in June last year, initially as most people do, to see the world for free, but since then I have only hosted, never travelled. There is a lot to be said for the Couchsurfer organisation, in that it enables you to get in touch with, chat with, stay with and host people you could never ever have met otherwise. There are certain dangers of course, one has to be very careful and read profiles carefully before accepting a person or people one has never met before into one's home. One has to set one's own rules. There is also the danger on the various forums of rumour, backbiting, and frankly slanderous behaviour that one would rarely meet in real life. People feel free behind a computer screen to voice opinions and criticize where they would never do so to your face. But that being said, I hosted four times last year (my profile is CarolineV, http://www.couchsurfers.org, you can look me up under Brittany, and you'll see who I hosted and what we thought of each other). One of my guests taught me to fly a kite (the type kitesurfers use) on my big beach and was kind enough to send me a beginner's kite for my birthday! I also found a marvellous Norwegian housesitter for the month I spent in Princeton when Cécile was having my second grandson (Leif Mohandes, born 28th September), and one of the people I hosted last summer is coming this month to sit my house for most of the month of March when I'm away in India (more of that further on). All for free, they consider my house a good base for visiting the region, I know the place is occupied and my animal(s) looked after and plants watered. I'm less keen on surfing someone else's couch though. Don't like to impose, which is silly, since I agree to be imposed upon; don't want things to go wrong and end up paying for an expensive hotel; not sure I want to put up with being carted around as a tourist, I prefer doing it on my own. But maybe I'll get around to that this year.

Flippin' cold in Brittany!

Who said it never freezes in the Finistere? Very cold this week, the terrace behind the house is lethal, I'm afraid Oslo will slip and fall down the stairs.

I've finished spinning and plying the wool for Grama, here's what the skein looks like. I've knitted part of it, I think it'll be a bit thick for her, but never mind, at least she'll know I've made an effort and done something special.

I've also joined a new swap, it's getting to be quite a habit, but I rather enjoy it. This one is a birthday swap - 12 people each with their birthday a different month. So each person gets 11 parcels for their birthday. And since I'm January, I get to be first!

I booked my train tickets to go to London the weekend before my birthday yesterday. Took a long time, the site kept going wrong, then my card wouldn't work. Anyway I've done it, and it's worked out cheaper than the plane, because there's a special offer on Eurostar. It's also Chinese new year that weekend, might be fun in London.

The time is going by really fast, Nicholas will be here for Christmas in 10 days now. Must think about getting a little tree. I'm certainly not carting that enormous fake one down from the attic this year. Should have sold it on ebay, too late now for this year. And then, the person would have to come and fetch it, it's so huge. I wonder how many people in Quimper look at ebay for christmas trees?

In pottery this afternoon, I finished the little twisted sculpture of and Indian? touareg? woman with a baby, quite nice. And I almost finished the wall clock for the kitchen with a crab on it. More complicated than I thought, making the housing at the back for the clock mechanism.

I went to the gym three times last week, haven't been once this week. I'll go on Friday, tomorrow I want to go back to Ikea to return the stool I bought two weeks ago that I don't need, and to see about shelving for my bedroom.

On the Move

Funny time to be writing, as I have removal men all around me and packing cases in heaps and towers in every room. But I've been told not to worry and let them get on with it, so I'm sitting in a corner while it all happens.

I think this must be the worst experience of all my life! I sat in my bath last night, before going to supper with Jean-Luc and Marylou, who are kindly feeding me most of the time now, thinking "Why am I doing this? What ever got into me?"

The house echoes and resonates with every step and every word spoken. It's as if I'd never lived here. It's not the same place. My bedroom is the only room that has any semblance of comfort and order although all the bookshelves are empty and the bits and pieces gone. It's warm outside, especially for October, but the house seems cold. I can't light a fire, they've stacked cases in the middle of the sitting room in front of the fireplace.

We are Friday. They started yesterday afternoon, and arrived at 7h00 this morning to pack all day. I shall have to get through the weekend like this, then Monday they are coming at 7h00 to load a lorry. I shall speed up to Finistere Monday afternoon to clean the house before furniture is unloaded. Not long to go. It's just a rotten week. In a month or so I shan't even remember it, but I hope I recollect enought to remind me not to move again in a hurry!

We have had some splended weather. When I went up to Brittany last week, it was simply beautiful and hot, one could have been on the Cote d'Azur. I had a big smile on my face as I drove up and drew near to my destination, I thought "I'm not just going on holiday, I'm going to LIVE here". The countryside was wonderful. The house was not fit to sleep in when I got there, so I gave the van der Plaetsen's a ring and they gave me a bed for the night. I unloaded all the plants and stuff I had in the car, and since I didn't want to disturb them for dinner because they had family there, I drove to Audierne via Douarnenez along the coast. It was quite lovely. I wanted to eat at the Roi Gradlon where Mike and Mum stay when they go to Audierne, but it was Friday evening and a weekend of grandes marees so the place was stuffed with Parisiens and other "foreigners" who had come up especially for the peche a pied. They had no room for me to eat, so I went across the parking lot to a little shacky place just above the break water where they do moules and things. There were quite a few people, I ate on the terrasse although it was a bit chilly, and to be different didn't have moules but palourdes and a brochette d'agneau frites. I should have had moules! It wasn't bad but not fantastic, not expensive either, and I had the sea crashing against the rocks just beneath and the sun setting over the Baie d'Audierne. Not bad.