Goings out and Goings on

 
Goings Out

Our goings out this month have been all about food. We had two invitations to dinner this month - one French  and one English. Both menus were delicious and we enjoyed our friends company in both languages!

Our big outing this month was to the Truffle festival in Lablenque near Cahors. I have never eaten truffles before so this was a new experience for me. There were the usual stalls of wonderful artisan's food to tempt us and also demonstrations of truffle gathering. Then to the main event- le repas gastronomique. Each mouthful was a delight and accompanied by excellent wines. We were with a group of French friends who always take delight in explaining the wines and the food - we take as much time talking about the menu as tasting it. The meal rounded off with some impromptu singing led by our great friend Jean Claude and then the 2 hour drive home. Not cheap and a long way to go. Was it worth it? Ah oui!

Check out the Sunday menu below to see what we ate.

The final going out for me is a trip to the UK leaving today and coming back on the 10th February - can't wait for some cuddles from the grandchildren and a catch up with the family and friends.

Goings On

So what's been happening at the ruin. Well the builders are coming to the end of their work on the structure for the moment. They'll be back later to sandblast and re-point but for now they have all the walls, doors and windows done. As we are on a sloping site we need a retaining wall at the back of the house to give us a terrace in front of the kitchen and they are starting that today. It should all be done when I come back from the UK.

View the slideshow to check out what's been going on this month.

 

			A bientôt

Happy New Year 2013

We wish everyone a very happy and healthy new year.  We will be moving into our new home this year ( not sure when yet) so that is very exciting.

The New Year can be celebrated here up to the end of January and the traditional offering is Galettes des Rois - King's cake - read about it here. We had our first taste on Friday when we had a meal with our friends from the Kiwanis club. Kevin found one of the féves in the form of a vintage 2CV and was King for the evening.

Festivities 2012

We hope you all enjoyed your celebrations this year. Although we miss our family we knew they were all having a great time and we will have them here when the weather is good. I'll be getting my family fix at the end of the month. We are so grateful to our friends who have let us use their house this winter. It meant that we could celebrate Christmas and New year with good friends

Our friend Sandie helping Kevin in the kitchen

Table ready for Christmas dinner

 In the potager

There's not much to do in the veg garden at the moment as it's very wet down there. I am still processing the fruits of our labours from last year though and yesterday I had a marathon butternut squash soup session.  I add a little curry - yum.

The potager isn't idle though. The broad beans I sowed in October are all coming along well and the garlic is poking through and I am busy planning for the springtime when it all starts off again. Nothing compares to the tastes and colours of home grown food.

 

At the Ruin 

Work carried on all through December and picked up again straight away in January. It has been difficult at the ruin as the place is a sea of mud not helped by being churned up by lorries etc. and wellies have been the order of the day. The house is looking great though and we are very pleased that so much of the original building has been preserved. Check out the slideshow to see what's been going on.

Signs of Spring

The days are getting longer, there are signs of Spring already - the hazel catkins seem to have appeared overnight and the orchards are looking wonderful. It's hard to imagine at the moment but soon we'll be back out in the garden enjoying the sun - but we will.

Bonne Année

A la prochaine.

A roof raising time

Sorry it's been a while - we have been moving from our summer lodging to our winter lodging. We are so lucky to have friends willing to let us use their holiday homes and we are very grateful. The winter lodging is in the next village - Vertueil d'Agenais - and is a large maison de maître that used to be the village doctors house - I have my office set up in what was the doctor's waiting room.

The chef in the kitchen of the winter lodging

Down at the ruin things moved on apace. The builders finished the hard standing at the side of the barn which will be the home of our tractors and wood cutting equipment and where we will have our wood store.

Pouring the concrete - this is a covered area

Meanwhile the charpentier had arrived to take the roof off. Would all the walls fall down?

Well not all of them did! Watch the slideshow to see which walls came tumbling down and how they went up again.

We also had a little trip to the UK to fit in as my daughter got married to her beautiful partner Karen and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. You can see the photos here.

Thanks for reading - à bientôt.

A diamond + afternoon

Friday 26th October 2012 was our 16th wedding anniversary but sadly Kevin had meetings all day in Bordeaux..

We make a good team

 I went out for lunch though as Le Club des Ainés ( seniors club) had their annual meal and I was on top table as I was standing in for monsieur le maire. The menu was very inviting and didn't disappoint.

Kir et ses gateaux secs

Potage Cultivareur

Assiette Gasconne (salade,tomate,oeuf,gésiers,mouss de foie gras)

Feuilleté aux fruits de Mer

Rôti de Veau aux Pruneaux

Légimes assortis

Assiette du Berger sur son Délice de l'Escargot

Profiteroles au Cocolat

Café

 The best bit about being on top table was that I was seated next to one of the honoured guests who is also the patriarch of the first family to welcome us to Labretonie more than 10 years ago. Eugene and his wife Alyse were celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary - in French this is Les Noces de Palissandre (Rosewood).  They had both been born in Brittany and came to the Lot-et-Garonne in 1947 when there was a lack of people to work the land here after the world wars and at the same time too many agriculteurs in Britanny. They were very young 21 and 22 with year old twins and it was very hard to leave the region they loved and all their family and friends. They were lucky that a neighbouring family had moved here 9 years earlier and they gave them their much needed support as they started out in their own farm. They went on to have another daughter, grandchildren and great grandchildren and to become much cherished members of this small community. Eugene recalled how they would sit by the fire in the evenings and all sing along to his harmonica accompaniment. 'It was a hard life but a good one' Eugene told me. 

We were also celebrating the diamond wedding anniversary of Norbert and Yvette.  They were both born in the neighbouring village of St Barthélémy and went to school together. Norbert lived with his mother and never knew his father and they were very poor. His mother was eventually murdered by one of her lovers and Norbert was put into foster care in a nearby village where he was pretty much used as unpaid labour. Once a week he was able to return to St Barthélémy to go to mass and visit his aunt. There he would get his weekly glimpse of the girl he had fallen in love with - a girl he didn't feel worthy of. After his time in the army where he had learned to drive he became a long distance lorry driver and earned enough to give him confidence to approach the love of his life. They married and had 3 daughters and several grandchildren. Norbert played a big part in local politics and was mayor of St Barthélémy for many years.

Both of these couples take part every year in the show that we put on. Eugene and Alyse are known for their duets, Yvette for her contribution to the choir and Norbert for his comedy .

Alyse and Eugene singing Les Volets Bleu

We also celebrated an 80th and 90th birthday - folks live to a ripe old age here in the Lot-et-Graonne. Entertainment was in the hands of Mick  Fontaine and his accordion and our two wedding anniversary couples led off the dancing that continued through until early evening. 

A day full of friendship and love and I wasn't the only one who was moved to tears.

Renovation odds and sods

It doesn't seem as though we have made much progress here at the ruin but in fact, despite it being August, quite a bit has been going on. We want to move the electricity and telephone meters to the boundary of the property and have all the cables underground. Don't get excited I didn't manage to get ERDF or Orange out here in August but I did make contact, got the estimates, signed and returned them and all is set up for the work to take place next week. The water meter is already on the property border. So then we needed to make sure that all the gaines (ducts) for the cables were in place. So another day of work for the digger and our electrician and his wife who worked hard to get all the ducting in place on a very hot day!

 

Water ducting going in

Electrician at work

and the electrician's wife - it was thirsty work

 The well has been finished off with  another level being added to bring the lid above ground level so we won't lose it again! All the wood from the fence removal and other bits of demolition have all been collected into a huge pile for bonfire night - our friend brought a tractor with a huge fork lift attachment that cleaned up a huge mess in less than 20 minutes.

 

 I've been pottering in my garden and squirreling things away for the winter and we also had a birthday to celebrate. Today the electrician did the first fix in the laundry room so we can get on and add the plasterboard and tile the floor. So moving on despite having had a lazy summer - we'll get more done when the cooler weather comes perhaps but as it's been 36° today I am going for a swim chez mes amis!

Our sunshine children

Of course our own four children (and their partners) and our 4 grandchildren are the most special people in the world to us but today I have been thinking about all the other children and their families that have come into our lives since we came to live here 10 years ago.

Why sunshine children? Well many of them we met when running our gîte business and we always closed in the winter. We loved welcoming families with children and loved hearing them having fun in the swimming pool or on the swings and the trampoline. Best of all we loved having them on Wednesday evenings on our terrace when we'd eat something yummy cooked by Kevin and then play silly games until well after normal bedtimes. So may of them came back year after year and we loved watched them growing up. 

Kevin with a young guest

Here's an Easter basket waiting to be found

Youngsters often visited us

Some French guests putting on a show for us

Although we haven't been running gîtes since May several of the families who were booked this year were returning guests and although we weren't able to meet on the terrace at Peyrenègre as usual that didn't stop us meeting up at our country cottage for evenings of food and fun. They all said that they had come back year on year because they felt so at home and so welcomed by us and that we were very much part of their holiday - and we told them that we had loved welcoming them each year and watching their children grow. So many of them have become personal friends and keep in touch with us regularly.

The terrace has changed but the friendships remain

Two of the families that came to us for several years in succession still met up when they moved on to other locations. Last year,when they heard that we had put Peyrenègre up for sale, both families visited us and were our guests for one night. How wonderful to welcome them again to eat with us and how wonderful to see those little children we knew so well as gorgeous young people. We were delighted to hear recently that one of them, Adam, has been accepted by Oxford. We're sure he'll find it a doddle - after all he survived being teased unmercifully by us every year.

Making afternoon tea for everyone

Then there are the children of our village. On Sunday there was a baptism in the village church. The mother is the daughter of our builder and when we first met her she didn't even have a boyfriend. Now she is happily married and has three children. She is just one of the many youngsters we have seen grow up in the last ten years and we love how they remain friendly and polite to us whenever there is a village event. We also have French friends who have children and every year we are invited to a meal prepared and served by the children with musical interludes provided by them too. Last year we had 3 English children and 6 French children for 2 days of fun and games with all the parents invited on the evening of the second day to taste a meal prepared by the children.

       Our grand designs

There are also two families that have houses here who come every summer and their children are very special to us. They are like an extra arm to our family and have a special place in our hearts. One family aren't here this year. As it is their house we are living in they have decided to have a different experience this year - we miss them! Our other friends are Australian and have a house in the next village. We went to their daughter's wedding when she married her delicious French man and we  now welcome their three daughters into our lives too. Although they live in Aix- en- Provence they come often and always for the summer and we love catching up with them - and this year sharing their pool!

The girls from Aix en Provence on the left and our own granddaughter on the right having fun with Kevin

 So we think we are so lucky to have our own lovely family and then our sunshine families too. We love sharing this special corner of France with them and would like to thank them for all the joy they bring us. Here's to many more sunshine days together!

Well, well, well what do we have here?

The hunt for liquid gold

One of the reasons this site was so attractive to us is that it has a fresh water spring on it. Having an endless supply of water here will make our life much easier - and cheaper! If any of you have read or seen the film of that French classic Jean de Florette and its sequel Manon des Sources you'll appreciate what a difference a water source can make. Villagers have told us many tales about their mothers washing clothes in the pool created by the source and of bringing cattle and other animals here in times of drought. One told me that when she got home from school each afternoon her grandfather would put her astride the cart horse - her legs well splayed out as it was a mighty beast -  and giving it a tap on the rump sett them off for a little ride. The horse came straight to the cool troughs of water on our property and after drinking its fill walked her slowly home again. You can still see the stones where women rubbed their washing and we are planning to clean it all out and restore it to its former state.

As well as the source our immediate neighbour told us that we have a well.  She remembers it being dug out about 45 years ago and told us that it had been capped off and then turfed over. This is where the water that comes out of the tap on our terrace originates from. Someone else thought the well was higher up on a neighbouring farmer's land so the other day Kevin, with a little help from a man with a digger, went on the search for liquid gold.

Following the lead pipe from the tap on the terrace

No sign of the well yet

Hang on this looks like something

The top is very heavy

Bingo! Ca y est!

The old lead pipe got broken in the process but as it couldn't stay that wasn't the end of the world. We bought new piping and by using a siphon method Kevin got the water running again to a new tap without the need for a pump.  Result!