Wednesday 31 December 2014

Bobbing along out of the old and into the new

This chubby, cheeky, chappy was proud to pose by the River Anglin today. I hope a fortuitous omen!





Tuesday 30 December 2014

Food and too much of it!

For a dinner party of 4 adults and three children aged six and three, I could not get Bar which is Sea Bass.  However, a 2kg Norwegian trout was purchased at Intermarche, where the fishmonger explained how to cook it.  She descaled and prepped it.  In future I would ask her to take out the skeleton.  She had suggested that she could!  I would keep the skeleton for stock and stuff the fillets as I did for the whole fish... that way I would not have tricky bones and waste! After the dinner party, I froze some of the flesh as i got tired of eating trout for four days!   I made the debris into fish stock and used some of that as a basis for pea soup!  The rest of the fish stock has been frozen for winter soup!
We were supposed to start with oysters but my friends didn't go to the village and let me know.. Instead they brought smoked salmon on crackers with gravadlax for the aperos.  Nice!  AND they bought bubbly which I had already got but we opened theirs.  I hope I will take mine round to their house.
Then we had slices of finger thick, smoked salmon from a side fillet that I had bought a few weeks ago served with a green salad (rocket, avocado, shallots ( I wanted spring onions!) and asparagus.  I warmed up the salmon so it was cooked and very rich! The photo was blurred so got deleted!
NB That evening I realised the trout was not a good idea because it was almost like Salmon! T
For the main course the trout was served with small roasted potatoes which had been partially cooked in the kettle with the trout, plus grated celeriac and carrot which I had braised in lemon juice, zest and cream in the oven plus green shoots of Romanesco.
We were full. Parents were tired so the lovely Valençay and Gorgonzola cheeses remained untouched.   They chose the home made lemon curd dessert which was layered with crushed speculoos biscuits and plain yoghurt in individual glasses. I'd had desserts like that on Ile de Re so wanted to experiment. I haven't got it quite right. I also followed a recipe for lemon meringue pie / tart which i used to make almost weekly without blinking an eye!!!!!!!
I started it on New Year's Eve... because between the dinner party and NYE I'd made 12 mince pies with my own pastry and jar of 2005 vintage mincemeat! YUM!
The dinner party took me almost two days to clean, lay table prettily, find candles, plates, glasses and prep the food so that when guests arrived I had little to do except get food hot and plated!
C and JC loved the atmosphere with candles in several places and frankincense in the air.
I loved doing it but well out of practice!
It took several days for me to clear up as I have no dishwasher but between so I socialised and did other things! 


Sunday 28 December 2014

24 and 26 December 2014 Ars-en-Ré


Ars-en-Ré won her heart yet again! She discovered a thriving market selling products from sea and land.  Shops were open on 26th December. She had walked along the sea wall and dunes into town and enjoyed Breton Far and Jasmine tea for a late breakfast lunch at La Tour de Senechal with the church opposite.
On Christmas Eve this was her first view of the sea when she crossed the road from her hotel.  The building is a douanier, also used by fishermen. The sea wall acts as protection against the Atlantic forces. Beneath the tide are 'les écluses". Further along this coast the sea wall is being reinforced.. a long task!

Saturday 27 December 2014

Christmas Day Menu 2014

 Breakfast at Z'Adore, La Couarde

Déjeuner at Le Belem, St Martin-en-Ré 

The 35e menu was served with a red Sancerre and water
Médaillon de thon mariné aux épices douces
Filet de bar rôti, sauce beuure blanc, étuvée de légumes frais
Gros macaron au caramel et aux pommes followed by coffee and brandy

Friday 26 December 2014

Christmas Eve and Day

Christmas Eve and Christmas day, she stayed in a Hotel on the Île de Ré
All by herself with no tent to erect, an impromptu decision made her think "What the heck!"
No time for much planning, no cycle to ride, she thought she would wing it and later decide
where to dine, what to eat, where to walk, where to treat herself when not in a bedroom suite.


Thursday 25 December 2014

Bon Noel and Happy New Year

To you all. To all of you.
I hope that Pére Noël brought you kindness, peace, hope, shelter, food, warmth, love.  It is a wonderful thing to be cared for, to have friends, to live and to love, to gift whatever we can.
Thank you all.
I can understand why an island is a wonderful place. However, I didn't do the Christmas Day picnic. I succumbed to a wonderful meal after a walk which was enough.  I wished my legs could have walked further along the sands...but it is quite hard work and one is never sure how far from base one has wandered!
I started this post on 25th but am publishing on New Year's Eve. I didn't have the mental energy or time to post using the ipad whilst on the island.  Since then, having returned home, it took me almost two days to prepare for a pretty table dinner for guests, then there was the clearing up, then there has been going out with friends over this festive season -  a sharp contrast to last year, when I continued to nurse my bunion, biceps tendonitis, woodburner and jigsaw!
I am sure you are glad for me that this year I am happy!
There will, I hope, be some postings about my island holiday and a few other pics.
Meanwhile I am trying to write a fact or fiction piece for a writing competition!

Wednesday 24 December 2014

Christmas Eve 2014

Big Feet does a little dance on four paws as she moves her polydactylic feet deftly from side to side at the window of the door into the outside workshop, until it is opened for the Queen of Cats!   She and Restless in France ...
aka SweetpeainFrance ... wish you all a very
Happy Christmas Eveeeeee- ning.
Tomorrow, her Christmas Gift and Surprise!
xxxxxxxxxx

Tuesday 23 December 2014

Nomads

I have seen about three or four of the Chatellerault Christmas spectacles since living in France, but I had thought they'd been axed... so it was a great pleasure to know that these circus events are being continued as a free gift to residents of this region.  The best I saw was Transhumance in 2007.
I found this video of it because I don't know where my photos are!
For those who do not know:- Transhumance is the description of when cattle, sheep, goats go to the mountains in the Spring and are brought to the lowlands in the Autumn.  Of course it is a time of movement, of travel, of nomads and by extension could apply to many animals and people of the world.
Here is a video I found on the internet.
It is the troupe of modern troubadours in procession.  The procession is a representation of the Transhumance in the southern parts of France. I shall look for other information to display here...
Here is another link.
I would also like to wish a very happy feast to my former partner who is currently travelling in Australia, after 3 months in Malaysia and 3 months in Taiwan.  Soon he goes to Laos! A very brave and courageous man.  I don't know if he knows about this blog as he has never asked and so I have never said!  He is 'un petit nomad'. 
I too have a need to travel!

Sunday 21 December 2014

Fête de fin d'année

Sunday evening ça bouge à Châtellerault... but we could not get near enough to appreciate the moments... HERE ...you can see professional photography of the group Remue-Menage based in Paris and whilst you look at the photos 'vous faire rêver!'- l'objectif de la compagnie. Scroll down on their site for the videos which were not quite what was performed. The 45 minute apx show ended with fireworks.  These are some of my better photos but I was way way back in the crowds with a zoom lens that could see what I could not see. One needed binnies! Unfortunately, the parade was just the three angel/bird stilt walkers so we didn't have the pleasure of that for long as their long legs had gone as soon as we'd spotted them and they were being led by security! We had not arrived early enough to stake our patch near the front and the children were restless as they couldn't see! The music was very good. Garden chairs would be best to install in a premium position if such a spectacle occurs next year!  The Maire should have considered an even higher platform to justify the expense of this spectacle so that more people could DREAM of the JOY that was being performed!
Go HERE for the press review in French the following day but with a good photo!
The huge balloons came floating along the boulevard helped by audience push and I managed to push one too! Later, I saw one being carried home by a teenager as a trophy, whereas another burst in the trees!

Saturday 20 December 2014

Film Review: Mr Turner

I sat enthralled, attempting to suppress my vocalised "Wow" at the opening of this most amazing film.  How wondrous when mists of steam, or clouds in sky, or swirls of snow create an image of that Steamboat, which I think it was (?) on film.  A 21st century play of light about a Romantic era moving to that of Impressionism during the early 19th century. 
The introduction transfixed me; took me to the windmill at Walberswick where my grand-aunt and grandmother re-enacted their balancing acts, for they were not allowed by the turn of 19th to 20th century law to perform in the family circus... it was not the flat lands of Suffolk but the flat land of Holland.  Such an amazing image for the commencement of the film.
The colour, the costumes, the characters, the representation of emotion in art and in artists, the story of a life and lives, was extremely well-conceived by the mind of Mike Leigh.  BRILLIANT!
I heard the ancient English language, noted the French translation at the base of the moving pictures, chuckled here and there in absolute delight, gasped at the brutality of man with woman, marvelled at the sets of sea, coast, art studio and art gallery, contemplated how J.M.W. Turner revered his female cousin and used other women for his everyday human needs.
What brilliant actors and actresses and all those who worked to create such pleasure for the audience.
I loved the music... reminiscent of Benjamin Britten and Aldeburgh... wistfully, hauntingly moving us through the landscape of emotions, of romance, of lust, of leaving an impression of history and art, true art, art that is difficult to aspire to, the true art of genius.
Turner was interested in how sun, the sun that is God, created light, the physics of colour.  He played with pigment to express light in and on his canvases, his 'toiles' were like 'étoiles dans le ciel'. He experimented with making paints to daub his canvases, to paint nuances of darkness and light in sea, sky, steam, cloud and weather. He also wished to present Humanity and Architecture in his work but increasingly his work became more atmospheric.  He explored techniques to transfer what he saw onto what could be seen forever, but some of the patina and colour in his paintwork has faded over time.  He wanted the public to have free access to his work after his death but unfortunately that hasn't necessarily been the case: his works were dispersed.  He was in awe of invention, where camera captured image and portrait, where steam could push or haul vast engines to master the great outdoors, in a different way to that where Turner captured the spirit of invention anidst the natural world.
Other artists portrayed at the Royal Academy spoke to us using the language that art and artists sometimes use .... but I prefer to look and enquire how they achieved what they did and how the work of art speaks to the wonder of the viewer, how it appeals to those who look.
Evidently there is at least one error of history within the film...
Ah...and aha not even Mike Leigh is perfect!  How I love his cinematography.
I loved this portrayal of an artist so much that I feel I could sit through the film again and again!
It was exciting and a pleasure to attend...to sit in the newly refurnished 400 coups cinema de Chatellerault. Thank you Mr Turner and Mr Leigh.
File:Joseph Mallord William Turner - Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth - WGA23178.jpg
With thanks to Wipipedia - Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, 1842


Tuesday 16 December 2014

Christmas lighting



On the drive from the airport I was enamoured by French Christmas lighting and disappointed that there is none as yet in my village. However, the tree has been placed in La Place and awaits the usual boxes and foil ribbon! Next they have been tying evergreen to the gutterings etc but none in my street as yet! A Christmas star has been on my gate since the first day of Advent and perhaps I shall tie greenery and brightness to the guttering downpipes. I may even make an effort to put some sparkle into the room in case the three children, young enough to revel in the magic, arrive, which I am sure they will. 
The aller-retour journey to England was interesting and I made conversation with several people, sometimes checking if it was ok to talk to them!
At Cambridge I watched as a mother and father had an emotional farewell to their daughter. He sat next to me on the National Express coach. I commented that Goodbyes are never easy but he replied he couldn’t speak English very well, as he was French.  He was delighted, and I thought it funny that in England I was speaking French!  Their tri-lingual daughter had finished her studies and was working through Christmas with an online hotel booking chain!  On the return journey I saw some people who had travelled on the same flight as me last week.  Whilst waiting to see which gates were open for the planes I spoke to an English woman who lives in Ireland but whose daughter and husband live in UK and she has had to return frequently for skin treatment as she has been severely burnt on her legs and arms with a toxic skincare product by Baylis and Harding!  She said she will fight it all the way as three weeks after applying the lotion she is still severely burned and has been told is not just an allergic reaction. The lotion has been analysed by a toxicologist and confirmed as dangerous! Goodness!
I also am glad I didn’t travel on Friday as evidently computer technology crashed and all flights across England were affected!

I've returned with new thoughts, old thoughts, even the possibility that I could if I wish sell up and return to England and although the thoughts have been in my brain for several weeks, I have not yet made a decision. I feel I'm at an impasse but there is much to do before I go anywhere!
I intend to try and do better with the negative thinking that crowds my thinking whilst I live alone, and I intend to set a more disciplined agenda with timed alarms to alert me not to waste my LIFE TIME!  I don’t wish to be overwhelmed again with tasks…so will have to re-learn SMART and KISS approaches to work, rest and play!!!!!! I really need to exercise more and it isn’t enough to just cut out carbohydrates… because then I want to eat sugary foods or too many almonds!     So a rethink on diet and exercise regime is necessary to be punctuated into the daily timetable. I have to do it!
I intend AGAIN to try and prevent myself from thinking and scribing emotional outpourings, though the poems when they come do please me!
A replacement passport has to be applied for before I can again leave France and perhaps I really MUST try to visit other places by train and feel as if I am getting out and about. Christmas is coming. These days I never enjoy this festive season but will make a better effort. 



Monday 15 December 2014

Santa One, Santa Two


 I smiled when I reached my village at six thirty of an evening. A good omen! The second joy was that Big Feet the Cat came running along from the rear garden entrance to the roadside when she heard my car! Now she is nestled on the settee in front of a roaring woodburner. Arriving home after a week’s absence, the temperature in bedroom and kitchen was 10C, the grand salon 12C rising to 17C, the courtyard 6C, Chauvigny street 4C.  There was evidence of rain, whereas before the flight descended to Poitiers, there was beautiful sunshine. Left that in England! Five hot water bottles are in bed as I haven’t bought that electric blanket! My family always called them hotties!

It was a fairly good week unfortunately marred by daughter being under par when I arrived and then she and grand-daughter suffered a tummy bug for three days, luckily without vomiting. Many children were absent from school and some hospital wards were closed.  I never managed to see my mother, as the day I could have hired a vehicle, I didn’t.  Although disappointed not to have seen her I can’t feel guilty that I too was feeling low and tired. Certainly didn’t wish to take her any illness. Fortunately, I haven’t succumbed. I saw some friends and not others. I didn’t buy clothes or shoes as there was no time, yet, I did collect more weight than I took, having to remove 2kg from checked in baggage to cabin baggage! 

HOWEVER, the best gift of all was that I was allowed to take Francesca out without parental chaperones for the FIRST time in SIX YEARS!  Mother can begin to let go! Gran'mama can be!  Not-so-little-one-anymore was ill on Monday but the school didn’t send her home! She missed the school carol concert and so did I!  I never managed to treat her after school as planned but maybe this was better.  It was agreed that after three days indoors we would go to see Santa on a Saturday afternoon. Gran’mama and little one, growing ever taller, walked hand in hand into the city trying to avoid the crowds. ‘Quel horreur’, when she said she needed to go to the toilet. I explained that I didn’t know where they were, then suspected a ruse when she said that there were reindeer in the Mall, the old Mall that I avoid at all possible costs. One couldn’t take a risk, so we nipped into John Oliver restaurant, which I dislike, but I knew where the loos were!  Trying to avoid going to the department store first, I asked which Santa she would prefer to go to but then I had a wheeze of an idea! It would be unlikely for her to believe in HIM, after the age of seven. "I tell you what Francesca, would you like to see TWO Santas?”  We laughed conspiratorially together when I suggested we could make a comparison, explaining the meaning of the word!  I felt like a naughty girl, freed from parental control and about to have some fun!  Ooohhh, Santa One and Santa Two. Gran'mama hadn’t seen Santa for a very long time! Whhhooopppeee!  Francesca chose to go to The Stranger Hall Museum first. We paid £5 but had to wait for the next slot in half an hour.  Therefore, I paid £3.50 to visit the house, which I had never been into in all the time I had lived near that city!  This is fun… there is a sixpence finding trail… each has a letter, unravel the letters to find which day in the year is special for mixing Christmas Puddings. Knowing the answer made this easy, as I wasn’t sure what size sixpences we were looking for! Eventually after four rooms I found a paper one about 20cm diameter! We backtracked and found one more … eventually we found 4 out of 6 letters, filled in the last two, showed the Victorian lady in the kitchen whom we had already spoken to about Christmas puds and Victorian money in her table display.  (I had to correct her when she spoke about holly as a pudding decoration when she was holding a sprig of bay leaves!!!!!  Hm??? What kind of English education is this!!!!!????)  Francesca won her reward of a size of a sixpence Christmas pudding – a foil wrapped chocolate ball!
Santa was BRILL! Very Victorian - red not green! He spoke very eloquently. Francesca had a charming conversation with him and Alf the Elf, who disappointingly was in his normal clothes wearing an elfin headdress. She received a wrapped present, delighted to open a history book including pictures and the story of Guido Fawkes and the Great Fire of London, which she has been studying at school. 
Next was the large department store where she was confident to purchase her ticket at the cash desk and work out how much change from a £10 note… easy peasy for her - £6.  On both occasions she was asked t spell her name ( it doesn't have a 'h')  and was complemented on an Italian name!  This Santa did have a real beard but when the reindeer feeding timetable was updated by a man in mufti instead of looking as if he was a Santa’s little helper, I was aghast when my dear granddaughter announced, having watched Santa arrive from his lunch break, that he was not real!!!!!!!!! Younger ears were present as we were third in the queue!  Full marks to the assistant who managed to allay reality and told Santa through the window that she doubted his reality!  Santa being well trained, understood what to say.  She could choose from the piles of toys in the grotto providing she left him some food for his reindeer!  She chose a soft turtle with goo goo green eyes. All kiddies could have a red balloon!  Actually it was Gran'mama who could reach the string to pull it from the ceiling. These days the parents pile in to the grotto and one can ask to take a photo of child with Santa. I thought it was all good value and great fun for me!!!!!!!

Afterwards it was pizza and ice cream as promised but not to the dreaded Pizza hut and express requested. We compromised with “Giraffe!” The main purpose of the visit was to see family and rid myself of French cabin fever. The weather was kind and so were my friends and family! It was mostly joyful! 

Friday 5 December 2014

Preciousness

I suffered from an unusual, undiagnosed (in those days) depression three months before my son was born. Not only was I living in an old, cold, almost uninhabitable house, which we had just bought to renovate (how ridiculously naive was that on our income, with no savings!!!!!!) in an isolated on the outskirts of a Suffolk village house without friends, company or vehicle during the day, when I had never ever been in that type of environment before, BUT, leaving my career position affected me, as did the subsequent loss of income, when we were reduced to receiving social welfare.
The father's business partnership had collapsed.

My son and I had to be educated on how to breastfeed; we knew the process of what to do, but it's not quite as easy as sticking a nipple in the new born mouth.  It took us several days to master the process... maybe almost a week. The books don't tell you how much it hurts when the breasts engorge and one has to release the milk another way!  One looks at the newborn child, the brain imagining all sorts of things.  I can understand how negative mental thoughts can take over the joy of Life, without constant support by the newly maternal bedside.

I am dreadfully sad for the family of the young woman with babe-in-arms who has recently, it seems, taken the precious gift of life from herself and her child.  It seems there was some known history of her mental health.

How can anyone get through hospital doors into the outside world without staff witnessing the action and asking questions?  Understaffed? Insufficient funding for staffing? Inappropriate layout of rooms, etc... I am trying to be kind! Never when I was in the cottage hospital where I gave birth the second time... nor in the huge hospital the first time could I even get to the toilet room alone without a midwife railing down on me!  One would have had to trail along staircases and exit through the main foyer where visitors, coffee bars were... One would not have been able to push a door release lock and step out!  Did no one see this woman and child between the hospital and the river?
It beggars belief!!!  My heart that has supplied blood and life to bear children bleeds.   I am sad, sickened, upset and feel more than disturbed for the father of the baby, for the grandparents, for those who have searched and found, for all those who have to deal with the investigation.  Tragic is an understatement. 

I accept that patients have a right to discharge themselves under the name of freedom... My grandfather who survived after WW1 with part of a lung, often discharged himself from hospital, once his breathing was under control, to the exasperation of my grandmother and others! But even then I think he had to sign a document to be able to walk through the exit doors!  He was a cantankerous old sod!

Having a baby isn't like being a patient... It challenges the mother, the father and the child in ways that here cannot be described. A first born can turn the world.  I never had any verbal or practical support from my parents, the other grandmother was too far away, and I learned from Dr Spock and the several emerging books on 'having a baby'. Midwives in the 1970s were fierce!  One did just want to get home...but never to the river.
That poor woman must have been suffering such dreadful inner torture, if the verdict proclaims that she did take Life for Death.

Moved to write.


Sunday 30 November 2014

Poem: Threads

silver spidery threads
lit by golden sunshine
connect an inner church wall to chairs
which have not moved,
where people sit,
where people stand, 
but do not kneel.

spidery webs,
silverised,
gilded,
in a French religious ceremony.

God’s light rebounds, 
when rainbow patches form, 
from filtered light through windows,
to bounce from saint to silk and stone,
to radiate a living smile in praise of life.

Spiders know how to catch God's glory.

a funeral,
a living end,
makes us sombre,
reminds us,
dust to dust.
Dignity 
in death,
Lost
is a Must.

I stand straight and tall near that cold stone wall,
to give respect to a human life I did not know,
watch, 
to contemplate death, 
recall,
life amidst people standing now,
who await a turn ahead,
who are invited to bless the dead,
they do...
knowing it could be you.

silvery threads spun,
were not disturbed for quite a while.
like us, 
not disturbed for also quite a while, 
but threads and webs of life remain,
alone.
Then.
When we least suspect it, 
Life is done,
GONE.  
The content of this posting MUST not be reproduced without written permission.    :)

November 2014
At the first funeral I stood and sat on the left of the aisle, up against the cold stone wall. As I contemplated many things, I noticed a mass of fine webs at hand level, that linked those stones with a chair which did not move because it was attached to the row of chairs it was part of.  I did not know him. He did not know me. But I had seen him on his land and I know people who knew him. A Tragic End. Respect.
At the second funeral, the following day, I sat and stood on the right of the aisle to see the coffin and altar.  Here as I sat having paid my blessings, in front of me at foot level were more of the same fine threads, fine in visibility. fine in texture. At a particular poignant moment, sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows and the web glistened with bright colour on its silk.  I smiled.  Life lives.
She and I had not met but in a Summer I might have waved if she had her window open... she was housebound for over five years.  I have a regret to my shame.  Each time I planned to visit, some thing delayed the event.  She and her daughter, who is also a neighbour, lived 'en famille' in my house. Respect.

When I wrote this I had no idea that I would post it on Advent Day One.  I light a candle.

Saturday 29 November 2014

Saturday Things I Love: Shutters

Poem: French Shutters / Volets

Shades with hues of light, an ambient climate.
A favourite island, nay, an Île,
a sea of brilliant blues sous un ciel.

Give her heart 'a ray' of sunshine.
Give her bliss as she stands to stare,
or cycles in her saddle with wind in her hair.

Ride the flat landscape, smell the sweet air,
Walk along beaches, eat ice cream there,
Hear her fun laughter, with never a care!

Where was she on Saturday, a week ago?