Pics from the Past that I missed

Take an aubergine, halve down the centre keeping the stalk attached to the fruit. Slash each half into slices whilst holding the stalk. Put onto an oiled baking tray. Into the gaps stuff slices of tomatoes, onions. Make a paste of anchovies, sun dried tomatoes, red peppers or whatever you fancy andspread across the top and into the gaps.  You can put slices of anchovy into the gaps and then cover with a paste or just olive oil.  Scatter with sliced onions, garlic, pine nuts in this case and sprinkle with loads of olive oil plus salt, pepper and any other seasoning.  Bake! You can make it totally vegan without the anchovies.

I saw Power dressing Black in Orange!

The start of work???

A pile of debris in July... normally done in October!

A Liberty Fabric circa 1970 cottony velvet.  I like it! Autumn Leaves.. and I like the song too!

The kitchen cupboard doors painted for the laundry room were hung to dry.

with a different kind of linen-oh!

and this was the Hairy One Eyed Monster meal to finish leftovers just before a few days on holiday!

Mad!

Food and Garden

Pear cake made in the makeshift kitchen.

The Garden is as dry as a bone.. akin to an Autumn clearance of weeds.. and this is only one third of the unwanted growth removed.

I plan to plant roses instead of herbs. Sage spread to kill thyme and marjoram. It was vigorous but now it has gone.

Mashed potatoes with bashed carrots created tuna potato cakes, served with a melange of green beans and an extra half an egg for protein, served on small to medium plates.

A while ago

Lunch before guests visited

...the current Workawayer who is actually my former partner... how weird this all is... told me that his English hosts from Cyprus were going North to England in their camper van...and so we agreed they could visit. They came to lunch and then I managed to out together an evening meal as well!!! Fortunately, there was a contribution to costs!
Salmon, lentils and salad for lunch. Salad and roast chicken for evening meal. Wine!

The two weeks before that he converted the kitchen cupboards  and did a difficult task of making the worktop fit the space perfectly when every side was at a different angle!  I wanted the cupboards and line of the worktop to follow the line of the floortiles in a room where every corner of the four walls is at a different angle to every other!

 Naturally, work stopped for the weekend and with our guests we walked around the village.

 

I started to think camper van kitchens for my own house kitchen! Nifty use of space in their four wheeled van!

And on the walk back to my house after a cup of tea, after a walk in the village, I looked upwards to the sky, as I often do!

Al Fresco

A temporary garden table is created with temporary recycled kitchen worktop for the overspill of al fresco dining when the small orange table can just about have a setting for two.

On this particular day in June we ate home made rye bread with pick 'n mix food of jambon, (not for me), a cheese with hay on top called 'FOIN', olives, nuts, crudites and fruit, wine and fruit juice.

A handful of peas cropped just before Midsummer's day.  The spidery pea plants produced two more handfuls before yielding no more, despite being watered abundantly in the early days of summer.  Broad beans and runner beans seem to have come to nothing at today's date!

Another gutted picture of the gradually emptied kitchen!    Oh what fun!

Chateau de Touffeau

On the Sunday of the Open Gardens Weekend we drove to Chateau de Touffeau, at Bonnes, a 12th century castle converted to a nobleman's mansion, owned by a relative of Chateau de la Brosse, where we paid entry for the chateau but the gardens were free.
We didn't realise it was a guided tour of the house. Yes, we followed the Madame but we thought the group was a private one. So we'd missed the beginning because we had wandered into the garden.  Trying to locate the group I opened an exterior door, which was clearly to private residency, and quickly closed it when a fierce daschund barked at the closing door!  Woops! Later, we asked for a refund as we could not locate the group.   I hope to go back a different day!
Another reason we did not join the group was because we were startled when purchasing tickets. The woman was aggressively formidable,  telling us in imperfect English that commerce had to be conducted only in French, not in English.  I didn't understand that she was talking about the guided tour! I thought she was telling us to speak French which we did, when we bought our ticket after they had started to speak to us in English!  All very confusing!  Later still, I realised the female cashier was in a hurry and LATE for starting the guided tour.  We'd coincided with her handing over the reins  to a chap and she seemed stressed telling him what to record in a book when he sold each ticket.  Lots of columns to tick!!!
For the uninitiated, the guided visit starts one hour after opening time in the morning and the same in the afternoon.  I guess the guided visit is 60 minutes at least. It would be helpful if it declared this on the literature! So many people had been waiting a long time!
The gardens were interesting and once much larger than they are now.  It must cost a fortune to maintain but some were inaccessible.  The chateau is or has been used for wedding or conferencing venues, hence the pool in the garden and inaccessible stable buildings.
ALSO in that region are some Limousin beef farms selling meat so I must investigate with someone else in order to do a shared purchase. 
Here is Sunday lunch, then the chateau pics:

Roast Goat ribs, veggie rice, roasted red peppers in scorching garden heat...

 with le son de vignoble glasses filled with Chardonnay...

Is the entrance Italianate?  The side gates seem akin to Renaissance Romeo and Juliet!

The plan...

A tower...

The Gardens...

I want one like these!

Magnolia trees by the pool...

Old and newer chimney pots

Two lions stand guard

Thank you for the visit!