29 October 2011

KNOCK, KNOCK

We arrived for our October holiday on the Saturday afternoon.

flowers

On the Sunday morning there was a little tap, tap on the door.  Nick opened the door and there was no-one there, just a beautiful bunch of flowers left on the doorstep.

26 October 2011

A MUSEUM FOR EVERYTHING

Over the years we have visited all sorts of museums in France ~ car museums, motorcycle museums, museums for mushrooms, wine, tools and prehistory.

This summer we ventured south by about 65 km to the town of Montmorillon and this time we were interested in the MACARON MUSEUM !!

museedumacaron2_02

I found a leaflet for it in L’Office de Tourisme in the village and we simply had to go !!

macaron musee2 macaron musee3 

The museum is on the upper floor of this shop and tells all about the production of almonds, the history of macarons, and the escapades of the family that have been making them in the town for many, many years.

macaron musee6

macaron musee7

There was a modest entrance fee and for this we had a tour of the museum, a very quaint film to watch and a dégustation – a tasting of some of the macarons the company still produce.

macaron musee4

These are not the glossy fashionable macarons that you see in all the fancy shop windows ~ the guide was very keen to point out that the family were making macrons like this first and they have an enduring quality.  They certainly were delicious.

macaron musee5

There was all sorts of paraphernalia on display relating to the production of macarons ~ I rather liked the knobs and levers to twiddle on this one.

macaron musee1

Mind you, this was parked a couple of streets away in the town and the knobs and levers on it looked more worthwhile twiddling !!

Montmorillon is an interesting town and there will be more about it later ~ a nice place to go on a dull and drizzly Monday afternoon.

8 October 2011

OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

Mirror

The château at Ussé seen in the mirror of my motorcycle.

3 October 2011

THE ENGLISH SHELF

the english shelf

Browsing through the supermarket in Yzeures-sur-Creuse, I found myself in front of some familiar things, many of them costing at least twice what we would pay for them in the UK.

I don’t think I would miss any of them enough to pay as much as that.