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 !

AM I GOING TO HAVE TO SAY THIS EVERY TIME?

That is, it's been over a month since I posted anything on my blog? Is it laziness? Nothing left in my time budget? I tell you, mostly it's because the photos I want to show are still in my camera, and it's such a business getting them into my machine and publishing them.

I have a new computer, a small Toshiba laptop, which Yves kindly bought for me... thank you Yves! I love it, it's light and aesthetic and works brilliantly well, and quickly and all that. But I don't much care for Windows Vista, and can't find anything I've downloaded, such as photos for instance. Well, I can find them but it takes ages to sort them into folders. Maybe I just haven't found the button.

So. What have I been doing since 11 April? I had the carpenter in to do the plinths and the strip of wood which holds up the ceiling in my bedroom (I mean really holds the ceiling up, when I removed the old one prior to papering, the ceiling nearly fell on my head). And he found some terrific looking cheapish wood to do it with. Sort of rough and vaguely painted white, really nice beach-looking stuff. So I decided on the spur of the moment to redo the hallway with it too, since the red wood that's there at the moment is starting to look a bit shaky and the hall is very dark. So while I was redoing the hall, I thought I'd change the door to the garden, which is not see through and also makes the hall very dark, so I ordered a window door... etc., etc., all of which I can't afford. But it'll look really good when it's finished. So anyway, the carpenter started off in April by redoing the loo (WC, toilet, john) which is off the hall and which was a different colour again, and it looks fantastic in this white wood. He's coming back on Tuesday to put in the door and do the rest of the hall.

Then I had my little brother Steve to stay, the first time he's managed to find time since I moved in a year and a half ago. I'm very partial to my brother Steve, well, to both my brothers, of whom I don't see enough, and was delighted to show him my house and Quimper and have dinner at Ste Marine (which is the fate of every one who comes to see me, wonderful place Le Café du Port right on the harbour). He was only here two days, so we didn't do much, and it pissed with rain all the time. That's what one forgets about Brittany. We have just had a week's heatwave, but really a heatwave, far too hot, temperatures between 28°C and 30°C. But now the weather has changed and it's chucking it down and it's freezing cold again. Sometimes I think it's wetter here than in Bangladesh... but then again sometimes the rest of France is under clouds and we have sun, so it's not all bad.

Then beginning of May I had a visit from my daughter Cécile over from the States with her son Marius. That was fantastic, they stayed over a week, and the weather was not too bad, and I really got to talk to Cécile who is expecting another baby end September, and to interact with Marius, two and three quarters, who is a little terror, but has his good sides: he'll eat anything, escargots and choucroute, and seafood, crevettes grises heads and all, wonderful to see him eat. And he goes to bed with no problem in the evening. Read him a story, give him a few books, and he goes to sleep with a book on his nose like a little old man! So that was really good fun. Last time Cécile was pregnant, I didn't get to see her at all. Lots of photos, but not the same as seeing your daughter with a swelling tummy. Very moving really. We had some good meals (one at Ste Marine of course), and walks on the beach, and trips into town to the manège and to eat ice cream. The photo above is Marius reading to Oslo, and below at the Jardins d'Acclimatation, with Papé Jack, meeting his first barbe à papa (candyfloss).



Then I had a visit from my old friend Patti with whom I was at college in London a couple of centuries ago. Hadn't seen her for a few years so we caught up, chatted a lot, and went for a meal at Ste Marine (I have a special table there now! no only joking). Only a couple of days, but good fun.

That's all on the visit front. Then I have brought loads of stuff back from my pottery class. I'll put pictures in a following post (yes, they are still in my camera). And did a day's course at the calligraphy workshop near me. I'm useless at calligraphy but it does allow one to do some interesting things. The theme was Planches Botaniques, so I feigned practising writing in the morning, then in the afternoon went wild with watercolours to do my planche botanique of oriental red poppies, and just added a couple of words to justify the calligraphy bit! I'm very proud of the result.

I've been knitting, started about 15 different project as is my wont. I'll do a separate post on that subject too.

Gardening, my terraces are looking terrific, but they did need a lot of watering in that heatwave. My bamboo are in very large black pots which soak up the heat and dry out fast.

My hair is growing, I can put it up in a twist with no difficulty and it's getting easier and easier to manage. I'm regretting less the 18 months of hell to get to this stage.

Yves came up this week for a couple of days. During the hot weather, bliss, we could eat outside on the terrace and went (of course, you've guessed) to dinner at Ste Marine. They do wonderful seafood and one never tires of it. We came back after dinner, fetched the dog (too hot to leave her in the car, even in the evening), went down to the beach and walked for half an hour (22H15 to 22h45, all that in daylight. It's quite fantastic how late it gets dark here at the very Western end of Europe.

That's it, that's what I've been doing since 11 April! I'll try not to leave it as long next time.

A QUICK TRIP TO DORSET

It's been over a month since I posted. I've woken up and have started doing things in the house after a year of abstinence. Forced abstinence because my shoulder prevented me absolutely from doing anything really, that is now much better with the rest, acupuncture and some special exercises to muscle up the shoulder cap. And voluntary abstinence because I was sick of painting and didn't have the cash to do anything serious in the house.

So I've redecorated my little bedroom, the one on the ground floor overlooking the back terrace. It had to be papered, the walls are so uneven. So I bought a japanesy paper back in December, pale willow green with a textured irregular sort of folded stripe running top to bottom, but not straight by any means, which makes it very easy to put up, no repeats, doesn't matter if the strip of wallpaper is off kilter, etc. But first I had to remove the existing orange wallpaper, and the polystyrene liner underneath. That flew into bits and stuck everywhere. Then I painted the door a sort of pale pale primrose yellow gloss. Looks good. Changed the door handle. Papered. Changed all the plugs and switches, half of which were crooked, all of which were old and horrible. I have a carpenter coming in next week to put new plinths and boards (literally boards) all around the top of the walls to make sure the board ceiling doesn't fall on me when I'm asleep!

New bedroom, very nice! Too small to photograph I think.

Then I put the power hose over the terrace behind the house, long job, messy. And the wall. I still have the steps down into the garden to do and the garden paths, then I can put it away for another year. The terrace is north facing and in winter gets practically no sun. The wall in question was white and grows moss and pink micro-organisms. Most unattractive. So I thought I'd paint it green so moss wouldn't show as much. I've chosen the same green as the veranda, a bit extreme but very brightening in the greyer months in the Finistere. It has totally transformed the terrace into a bright little space I really want to sit out on.

I took the car ferry from Roscoff last week and went to Dorset for the weekend. Had to get up really early to drive up from Quimper, and it's a very boring boat trip. But the sea was calm and the weather sunny, so once I was on my way it was OK. It's still a 12 hour trip from door to door though. Thank God for GPS! I forgot my road map of the UK and had to go into the depths of Devon to fetch two fleeces I'd ordered from a rare breeds farm near Okehampton. The lanes got so wild that one would have had to back for miles to let anything pass! The lanes were all lined with thousands of daffodils, quite beautiful. And from there home to Dorset.

My old Mum had celebrated her 92nd birthday the weekend previously. Doesn't she look GREAT? Nicholas and Marlena came down from London. And we had a nice family weekend not doing much, but doing it in brilliant sunshine. All weekend. Weren't we lucky? Nicholas took some really good photos, we all lost money on the Grand National, the F1 in Malaysia was cut short because of torrential rain, and we went out to lunch on Saturday which was a great success, Grama liked the restaurant!

On Sunday, we did lunch up at Mike's and Grama got to speak to Cecile, Aziz and Marius on Skype for the very first time. And on Monday I left and drove back home with all sorts of plants I'd pinched out of Grama's garden, a couple of seedling parasol pines, runner beans, fresh eggs for a month, and a dozen quincy which I reimported into France.

Youpi, my unsociable cat, who lives outside when I go away, went missing for two days after my return, that is, she never came back and I thought I'd seen the last of her, but she finally turned up, famished and thirsty and with a bleeding back paw. She's still growling at me whenever I touch her so it must hurt. I'll put a picture of her next post.

Happy Easter!

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...!