28 April 2021

WELL EELED

 


You can get almost anything at the Lencloître monthly market.
Live eels for one thing.


They even smoke them before your eyes.


Every shape and size of wicker basket.


Every flavour of saucisson.


Chickens.


Ducks.


Tons of the freshest local fruit and vegetables.


Tools.


Numerous varieties of garlic, for planting or eating.


Binfuls of buttons.

26 April 2021

WELL HEELED

 


Fancy shoes for sale at the monthly market in Lencloître, 2nd September 2013.

Made more for sitting than for walking I think!

I'll be walking into the vaccination centre today for my second dose of the AZ vaccine.  Most of our friends in France have now had at least one dose so things are inching forwards over there.  Fingers and toes crossed that we might make the September market in Lencloître this year.  The July or August one might be a little too much to hope for.


24 April 2021

THE OLD BARN DOOR

 


This old door in the village had a makeover a couple of years ago.

I liked it as it was on 13th April 2013.

Bon weekend !!

22 April 2021

A GOOD LUNCH

 


You know that lunch is likely to be good when the table looks like this.

Relais de la Mothe, Yzeures-sur-Creuse, 12th April 2013.

21 April 2021

ON THIS DAY



On 21st April 2017 we were invited for lunch with our friends who live at Champagne.

Champagne is a small hamlet just over the hill from us.  Before lunch we went for a walk to build up and appetite.  Up in the hills we came across this herd of Charolais cattle.


They rushed over to see who we were.

I wonder if they knew how lucky they were to have such a beautiful view from their field!

18 April 2021

BROCANTE

One of the many things we enjoy about life in France is going to the brocantes or vide greniers and we've really missed that during the pandemic.  I'm not sure what the precise difference is but "vide grenier" means empty the attic and "brocante" would be what we call in the UK bric-a-brac.  There is the equivalent event in the UK in the form of the car boot sale or antique fair but for some reason we rarely go to those.

I read recently that another unexpected non-bonus of Brexit is the effect on the UK's antique fairs.  It seems that because of the considerable red tape involved in bringing goods across from France it's now much more difficult for brocanters - the people who travel to France to forage for old French stuff to sell at UK flea markets - to fill their stalls and they are having a very hard time of it.  French brocante is going to be in short supply.  I would imagine that UK fans of old French antiques will find them harder to find and more expensive as a result. 

However, the one thing we do have aplenty in the UK and not in France is charity shops.  Just like last year, a lot of people have spent the lockdown having a good clear out but the difference this time is that our local charity shops had obviously sifted out the rubbish and there was some really nice stuff for sale.  Apart from the two books in my previous post these are some of the things I bought.


I bought a fresh tablecloth for my Dad for his dining table (£1) and a cute little jug for serving mint sauce for me (75p).



I rarely even look at clothes in charity shops but this top caught my eye and looked brand new.  It didn't have a price on the label and I suggested £3 to the lady on the till.  She was happy with that.  All the clothes and linens in our local shops are freshly laundered and pressed, presumably by their army of volunteers.


These little dishes are handy for giving Daisy her treat of "mouse".  We give her bits of raw meat as a treat so that she doesn't lose her taste for it and forget what her job is when we get back to France, 50p for the four.
The candle is a lovely scented candle in a china dish by Sophie Conran, a bit more expensive at £3.



The two brown dishes are Mason Cash pie dishes which I thought would be useful as outdoor water bowls for Hugo and Daisy.   They also had no price label on and the young man at the till said "75p".  "For the two?" I said, and he agreed.  Nick said they reminded him of the dishes that you would get "cow pie" in, as per the "cow pie" favoured by the Beano character Desperate Dan, in which case I decided to keep one for kitchen use.

The white dish is ovenproof but would be nice for serving vegetables, 90p.

As always, anything that doesn't get used will be donated back to the shop so they can sell it again.  All in a good cause.

15 April 2021

COLOUR CODING

 

With the easing of the lockdown at the beginning of this week the charity shops re-opened.  I did a brief tour of our local ones yesterday and checked that they were accepting donations, which most of them were.  (There are five different ones in our nearest town.)

I took a small box of unwanted items to my favourite shop along with a large bag of plastic carrier bags, acquired during our early days of click and collect grocery shopping when the supermarkets were supplying goods ready packed in bags, presumably to limit the amount of time people spent picking up their groceries.  Charity shops are always very pleased to get carrier bags in my experience.

Me being me, as usual, the net flow of charity shop items was into the house not out of it, (more of that in the next post), two of the things I swooped on being these two cook books.  I have a large collection of cook books already but when they are only £1 or so each it's hard to resist a new one.  Both of these seemed to be completely brand new and unused.  Michelin starred chef Marcus Wareing is a judge on the professionals version of MasterChef and I had hung my nose over his book when it was first published a couple of years ago.  I managed to resist when it cost about £13 but when it was only £1.50 it seemed like a bargain too good to leave on the shelf.  


Which brings me to this year's MasterChef.

There was a bit of a hoo-ha when the broadcasting of the final of this year's amateur MasterChef competition was cancelled in favour of endless tributes to the late Duke of Edinburgh who died last week.  The poor man had been ill for some time which obviously gave all the TV channels plenty of time to prepare numerous tribute programmes including vast numbers of interviews with people who knew a lot about him and were prepared to record their memories and versions of events whilst he was still languishing in hospital then later in Windsor Castle.  I can't imagine being asked to speak in the past tense about the life of one of my friends while they are still with us but that's show business for you!  The MasterChef final was finally broadcast last night.  

We gave up watching the competition during the early rounds (John Torode and Greg Wallace do get on my pip a bit) and had forgotten all about it but decided to catch up just for the last cook-off.  What a pleasant, talented lot this year's young finalists were.  I would happily eat at any restaurant they each cook in and in many ways I suspect it hardly matters which one wins as I'm sure that just getting to the final secures a bright future for anyone hoping for a career as a chef.  

The food they cooked looked amazing and fabulous, considering that all of these people are literally amateurs, and the winner turned out to be Tom Rhodes, the young man on the right.  He currently works as assistant manager at Nando's Mexican style restaurant in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and seems like a really nice guy as well as an incredibly talented cook.

However, the thing that really tickled me was that during the section where viewers are treated to a little insight into their background and home life we saw a brief glimps of Tom's own cook book collection.  It looked like they were all arranged by colour !!  There he was browsing through one of his cook books in front of shelves where all the ones with pink covers were arranged together, next to the ones with blue covers and so on.  What a totally bonkers idea and I love it!  (Apparently Tom's ambition is to write a cook book himself.)

Mine are organised vaguely by author or type of cookery but they don't look anywhere near as appealing as having all the green, pink or yellow ones together!  I feel compelled to reorganise the whole lot rainbow fashion accordingly and I can't wait to make a start !!

12 April 2021

ON THIS DAY


On 12th April 2015 we went to a wine fair.

We bought some Chablis (and a few others).

The shop at the winery sells interesting foods.  We bought some of them.

They also sell soap made from donkey milk.  It was rather pricey so we managed to resist.

On this day today....I'm getting my hair cut.  After eighteen weeks and trimming my own hair, it's going to be a big day!!

10 April 2021

ON THIS DAY

 

A sunny stroll through the château courtyard at Le Grand-Pressigny.

10th April 2010.

You can park by the château entrance and explore the grounds for free, then admire the view.

The village of Le Grand-Pressigny.

Bon weekend!!

8 April 2021

THE BARREL


I was reminded of this when reading Tom Stephenson today.  
Creases me up every time.

ON THIS DAY


 On this day in 2012.
We had just arrived in Le Grand-Pressigny for our Easter holiday.
Lunch on the terrace in the sunshine.
Happy days.

6 April 2021

APRIL SHOWERS

 

Here in Derbyshire, this time last week we were basking in warm sunshine, getting ready to light the barbecue.  On Wednesday we reached a heady 22°C. 
This lockdown's not so bad after all, I thought.



Then the schools broke up for the Easter holidays!

Yesterday we had snow, which thankfully disappeared pretty quickly and the sun came out in the afternoon.  We spent a happy couple of hours belatedly celebrating a friend's 70th birthday, socially distanced outdoors, wrapped up in blankets.  (It wasn't that sunny!)

Today the weather looked promising early on but we've had hail storms on and off all afternoon and it's bitterly cold.  Much more like the Easter holidays of my own childhood, spent indoors, in front of the coal fire, doing jigsaw puzzles or playing cards with my cousins.

Now it's snowing again!!

April showers!!

3 April 2021

HAPPY EASTER !!



We are normally in France by Easter every year.  In fact, even when we had the little holiday home in the village we spent every Easter there.   It was the first chance every year for a break away from work.  Even way before that, ever since Nick and I first met in 1993, we have spent every Easter in France on holiday, one way or another.  Last Easter we were stuck, like everyone else, at home, wishing things were different and wondering how it would pan out.  We never dreamed that one year later we would be spending another Easter still in the UK and not in France.   

This means I have to go back two years to find pictures I took in France at Easter time.  These pictures are of a shopping trip we made in 2019, wine shopping to a couple of our favourite producers.  Having just arrived in France for the next few months we needed to stock up and on the way we stopped at St Aignan to give Hugo a walk along by the river.  


We stayed in the Grand Hotel many years ago, in Spring, probably in about 1995.

That year we were on our motorcycles and treated ourselves to a few days in a nice hotel.  The holiday was most memorable for the weather, which was terrible, and the hotel dining room.  It was really old fashioned, serving a very traditional French menu (which we liked) and it was the first place I watched a waitress serve the cheese using two knives.  Balancing the cheese plate on the palm of one hand she deftly cut slices of cheese with the other using two knives.  We were in awe!!  The cheese was delicious (the local goats cheeses are fabulous) and we had the cheese course every evening just so we could watch the two-knife spectacle.




The weather was pretty nippy at Easter in 2019, judging by Nick's thick coat.

Hugo enjoyed his walk by the river, which looks quite full and very grey, reflecting the cold grey sky.  Hugo himself is quite grey now.  I sometimes forget how totally densely black his fur was when he was little more than a puppy.



A double row of tilleuls - pollarded linden trees along the Cher river bank.

They're a frequent sight in France, waiting for the change in the weather that brings them into bud and then magnificently into full leaf providing so much important shade from the sun.

I hope you get a bit of sun wherever you are this Easter.

1 April 2021

MISTY MORNING

 



Early morning mist over the lake at La Celle-Guenand.

First week of April 2016.