OLD STUFF

The other weekend we fancied a run out and ended up at a town called Montrésor.  The weather was reasonable, the last of the decent weather before the recent cold snap.  Our last visit was probably over a year ago and there had been a few changes including the appearance of some new shops.

One of the shops was a "brocante" shop.  It sells second hand or old stuff, a cross between a junk shop and antique shop.  I can’t resist a nosey round such places and was amazed to find that the prices were very reasonable, more like street market prices than what you would expect in a tourist château town.

The little jug was 2€ and the decanter 9€.  The jug pours beautifully and is perfect for serving warm milk with my little cafetière of morning coffee.  The decanter also pours well and looks lovely filled with red wine on the dinner table.  The stopper is as usual not the original but that doesn't really matter.  

Bargains.

The tureen came from the brocante at Abilly, "fète de la confiture", earlier this year, already planted with a succulent plant, which didn't survive very long.  It was meant to be an outdoor plant but the pot had no drainage and the wet spring weather followed by repeated heatwaves made it difficult to look after.  We brought it indoors but it gave up the ghost and ended up as compost so I put one of our own indoor plants in it.

Finally, the artwork is made of old metal.  A friend of ours creates interesting pieces of sculpture  from metal and other items that he finds.  We have admired many of them but this one just makes me smile.  It's called "gold tooth" and was a recent exhibit in his own art gallery, a former garage, called Espace Onze.

A NEW WASHER, CHEESE, AND A VISITING CAT

Our washing machine had been on the blink for a long time.  Sometimes it would spin normally although noisily, sometimes it struggled and rattled like hell, and sometimes it just refused to spin at all.  It was a good quality Bosch machine but eleven years old and had been great until the last year.  So the question was, whether to try to get someone out to look at it and see if it could be repaired or whether to not risk spending good money on an old machine and buy a new one.  Plus the risk that one day it would simply conk out when full of wet washing, which has happened to other people I know and which complicates the problem no end.

The decision was made when I spotted a bargain in a local branch of SuperU.  700€ is a lot of money but 300€ off made it affordable.  We decided to go for it.  The old machine now resides forlornly at the corner of the déchetterie alongside other discarded machines.  Curiously, the man that mans the déchetterie seemed remarkably thrilled to take it, and didn't swipe our users card (twenty goes a year),  for which there must be an explanation but I can't imagine what.

I am very, very pleased with the new machine.  It hardly seems to use any water and washes things beautifully, spinning them much better than the old one.  RIP.

We recently discovered a number of previously unfamiliar cheeses at the cheese stall on the market.  We were having visitors and lashed out a ridiculous amount of money on an eclectic mix of hard and soft goat and cow's cheeses.  I took photos of them knowing I would never remember what they were otherwise

This one was my favourite.

They all went down well with our visitors who also were not familiar with any of them.

We couldn't resist this one, called Belper Knolle, because Belper is the name of a small town in Derbyshire close to where I grew up and a knowle is another word for a village or hamlet.  It was jolly expensive.  

I wondered how on earth cheese made in a Derbyshire town could end up on the market in the middle of France and was disappointed when the cheese lady told us it was Swiss.  However, it was worth buying as it's delicious.  The idea is to serve it grated like you would a parmesan, on salads, pasta dishes and in soups, and in fact it tastes much like parmesan only better.  I sprinkled it on the soup I served for dinner and it was much appreciated.  

We now covet the wooden cheese grating device that the cheese lady used to give us a taste.  

We have a visiting cat.  We had seen the cat in the field behind the house (once the farmer had cut down the triffid like weeds) occasionally over the last few months.  I wondered how long it would be before it ventured to our house and sure enough, I smelled the tell-tale odour of tomcat in the little barn.

Shortly after that Yvonne appeared one day without her collar and with a scratch on her face.  We found her collar (it's a quick release type) in a flower bed amongst a clump of flattened dahlias so we suppose that's where an encounter took place.  A few times she growled and hissed when looking out of the glass door and once she hurtled into the house via the cat flap and hid under the stairs, eyes like saucers, hissing and spitting.  Then we spotted the cat on the drive and found it on the beams in the little barn.  It's a handsome cat with a fluffy tail and looks nice and clean.

It is nothing like the vicious cat we had visiting before.  That one found its way into the house and terrorised Daisy, attacked both of us and would not go away, returning every night to take food.  This one seems much more friendly, is obviously well used to humans as it came towards us, purring and rolling over on the beams.  So far it has not attempted to get into the house and we therefore presume it's well fed and lives in one of the neighbouring farms, just doing the normal tomcat thing of wandering a fair distance from home every so often.  We haven't seen it for a few days now that the weather has turned and hope that it is in fact well cared for and has somewhere warm and cosy to spend the nights.  

BUSY, BUSY.

I have been really busy since my last post and much of it, one way or another has involved baking.

My friend Rachel asked me if I could make a birthday cake for her granddaughter's fourth birthday.  I remembered that somewhere amongst all my cook books was one which included several designs for children's birthday cakes so I sent her some pictures and she chose this one.  The family live in France so a fairy tale French château seemed perfect.

The only problem is that I have never ever made anything like it before!

I did a little mock-up of the design using cake tins I already had and ice cream cones for the turret roofs.

 On the internet I found several pages of similar designs to what I was aiming for.

Luckily Nick was back in the UK for a week and was able to bring back cake decorations and other stuff which I had no idea if I could buy here in France.

I baked the sponges for the cake and between Rachel, myself and Nick (and a few glasses of wine) we decorated it.  It took two whole hours.

The birthday girl was thrilled with it.

A WEEK IN BRITTANY

 

We stayed very much inland most of the time during this last holiday in Brittany, exploring its towns and villages, and discovered that there is much more to Brittany than fishing boats and beaches.

One thing we noticed was that even the smallest of villages will have a huge, elaborately built church.  This one is in the village of Plouaret.

Most of the houses are built from granite and another thing I noticed was that the chimney stacks are formed from the end walls of the building, which means that the fireplaces are at each end of the building.

We saw very few derelict or empty houses wherever we went, far fewer than in the villages and towns around us in Touraine.

We had mixed weather, often dull and rainy, which had the effect of making the grey granite look very dour.  Much of the property didn't look as old as in Touraine and seemed to be very well built and solid.  It was all very neat and tidy.

Houses were often crammed into small spaces with the front door right on the street, built in the days when normal transport was a horse and cart, or maybe a bicycle. 

We ate out as many times as we ate in but never made it to this restaurant.

Next time, perhaps.

The gite was a long distance from anywhere which meant that going out specifically to eat was a major exercise.

BRITTANY

We are on holiday in Brittany, some distance from the coast.  The gite is very rural and remote, down a long single lane grassy track, equipped reasonably well and clean, with excellent wifi, comfortable beds and plenty of hot water.

It’s a very pretty area and not as crowded as the seaside places.  There is more to Brittany than boats and beaches yet none of that is very far away.  It’s rather like how we see our home in the Loire.  We’re away from the touristy places but they’re not too far away if we fancy a day out (with visitors for example).

The other evening we went out for dinner to a restaurant we had spotted earlier in the day.  As we left the house and rounded the first bend our way was blocked just a few feet ahead by an enormous stag.  A fine full grown animal complete with antlers.  He blinked at us as if to say "what are YOU doing here?"  Then after a few moments just leapt through the hedge and disappeared.  Although we are surrounded by forest at home and see deer (and boar) regularly, I’ve never been close enough before to appreciate how big and magnificent they are.

The gite was once a farm and there is a barn full of ancient tractors and machinery jumbled amongst old furniture and other stuff.  It’s a brocanteur's paradise with loads of stuff that would "do up" nicely and fetch a small fortune.

At a brocante a few weeks ago we lashed out 8€ for an electric barbecue with our holiday in mind.  Often the barbecue provided can be rather unappealing so we brought our bargain with us but without high expectations.  It works really well, who would have thought it?!

Today we headed off to the coast, hoping for lunch, and were not disappointed.  We had misgivings as there is a lot of disruption caused by the strikes and protests going on all over France.  We spotted the occasional road block but were otherwise unaffected.

The weather is wet today and with that came a drop in temperature so the restaurant had its fire lit.

Hugo is getting used to accompanying us to lunch or dinner as we don’t like to leave him in the gite by himself.  He's well behaved but easily distracted.  He's learning and so are we.

 Lastly, as other bloggers that I read have reported, my page view count has suddenly gone through the roof.  Presumably due to AI activity of some sort but it’s hard to see how there would be anything to gain from it.  It’s all a mystery to me!

LUNCH IN A BROCANTE

A few weeks ago we went for the first time to a restaurant in Pleumartin.

Everything in there is for sale, including the china, tables and chairs.

A friend tells how she went for lunch and came away with a wardrobe.

It's like eating in an indoor brocante.

I couldn't resist the little dish which is the perfect size for peanuts or nibbles.

I picked it up and put it on our table.

Then I spotted the candlestick which was in the same colours.

The prices were very reasonable.

While I was away from the table browsing the exterior, which is also full of brocante, the little pot that matches the dish appeared mysteriously on our table.

Nobody noticed who put it there but it was probably the owner.

10/10 for salesmanship! 

A PAIR OF PAIRS, A STACK OF PLATES, A MISHAP AND A FREE DISH (old stuff)

One of the things I look for at brocantes and vide greniers (French "flea markets") is mugs. Earlier this year I picked up a really nice mug with a cat design on it for 2€.  When I got it home I looked up the name on the bottom of it, "Rosina Wachtmeister", and discovered a whole new world of cats.  This lady designs striking figurines as well as mugs and delightful calendars, see here.  

Once I discovered how much these mugs usually cost I stopped putting it in the dishwasher, now wash it lovingly by hand, and then found another modestly priced one in a different design online in the UK to make a pair (after all, there are two of us!).  (I may put a calendar on my Christmas wish list!)

I brought the second mug back to France in my well stuffed check-in bag last month.

These two mugs were on sale in a UK charity shop for £1.50 each.  We get a lot of swallows around us in France and enjoy their twittering and gymnastics as they perform for us each evening.  Being surrounded by otherwise unattractive pylons and overhead cables has its advantages for observing the antics of birdlife.  This is now our favourite pair of mugs for our morning cuppa.

I also brought them back to France last month, safely stowed in my overstuffed check-in bag.

These cheese plates were in a box in a UK charity shop for £4.  The box was scruffy but the plates pristine.  I managed to find another set online for a sensible price that also appeared unused and, with no room left in my check-in bag, managed to squeeze both boxes into my "under the seat in front" small cabin bag to bring them back to France. 

A set of eight matching dedicated cheese plates will come in very handy.  Cheese is served before dessert in France and I sometimes find myself having to wash up plates in the middle of a meal if a starter and dessert also need small plates.  Having friends round for lunch or dinner is a total joy but washing up in the middle takes the shine off!

However, my heart sank when I saw my "small bag" being diverted to the inspection lane at the airport.  Last time it was the rhubarb, this time the two boxes of plates which I admit could have looked like land mines on the scanner.  The young woman doing the inspection handled them very tentatively and then clearly thought I was smuggling English Camembert into France until I pointed out that they were boxed sets of cheese plates, not actual cheese.  She gave me one of those withering looks such people reserve for mad passengers.

It reminds me of the stories told by a friend who used to work on the check-in desk at an airport (before the days of fancy scanners) where people used to try to check in live chickens, and gas cookers, amongst other things, on the flights to India.

This mug is without its pair.  I accidentally knocked one out of the cupboard when putting things away.  It bounced twice on the worktop but landed on the tiled floor and was of course doomed.  It’s a shame because it was a favourite pair of mugs from Sainsbury's and they no longer stock the design.  I'm hoping that one day I might spot a replacement in a charity shop somewhere.

This Pyrex dish is a freebie from the "help yourself" table at the local déchèterie (recycling centre, or tip).  It’s in excellent condition and is the perfect size for a clafoutis!