Wounded in the kitchen and other things

Light on leaf

It's interesting how awkward it becomes to do your usual everyday things, when you've sliced the top of your thumb and you have a whopping great big plaster on it. Been dicing vegetables for goodness knows how long and have only had three accidents, including one with a mandolin. Now that really did hurt. For the jokers, I mean the kitchen equipment, not the musical instrument. This time I have done it in style:  messy and inconvenient, and a timely reminder of how essential the thumb is to the daily routine. Fortunately I'm right handed. It was my left-thumb that got beaten up. Even so there are things which are definitely trickier to do. Important things like taking photos! Washing up, ironing! Pshaw!! Most of the buttons and dials on the camera are on the right hand side and can only be pushed or turned easily with the right hand. On the left hand side there is one dial which is in thumb turning position. So trying to hold the camera while at the same time, turning the dial with my left index finger instead of my thumb isn't easy. Blurring when planned is one thing. Unwanted blurring is quite another. Anyhow Mike has now kissed it better, and miraculously it healed overnight!

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Cravant in snow

We are waiting for snow to arrive. At the moment it's in Paris and is working it's way down to us for later this afternoon. It's unlikely to be a problem, being very damp and with more rain forecast  over the next few days. But can't imagine it will be the last of the snow. Usually we come over later in January with heavier snow arriving in February. We'll see. The pic is from our village at the end of January last year. We're lucky in that the wine producers always turn out with snowplough attachments on their tractors and clear the roads in the village, so everyone can get about. Get to the main road however, between us and Chinon and last year, it was like an ice rink. No one from the council seems to want to pick up that responsibility. We'll see what happens this time round.



Tell you what though it has got decidedly chilly. 
Madame who lives with her husband in an old house on the corner is our temperature marker. She first appeared in the blog last year. We saw her this morning on our way back from Chinon and stopped for a brief chat. She was sporting one of her spring dresses, her cross-over apron, thick tights, slippers and...a cardigan. When she wears one of those, you know winter has arrived.

Not that 'chilly' figures much in her vocabulary. She's a tough cookie. But it did feature in our French conversation this morning. We meet upstairs in an old house (owned by the organisation) which like a lot of old buildings is difficult to heat. Our conversation leader Danielle arrived to find us huddled together with coats and scarves on. 'Très frisquet aujourd'hui' she says, 'very chilly/nippy today'. The way you pronounce it sounds like friskay. English humour kicked in of course,  'feeling a bit friskay' are we etc etc. Had to explain to Danielle what frisky meant in English. 

Frisquet is a great word. I've entered it into my top ten favourites. In pole position is gusset. There is something about that word that just curls me up. It's originally a Middle English word from old French, gousset, which means pod or husk. I had thought it would appear in my online Shakespeare Insult Kit list. How about:  you beslubbering beef-witted gusset  bladder or you mammering flat-mouthed canker-blossomed gusset harpy. Really starting to roll now. Unfortunately there is no sign of gusset anywhere on that list. Hugely disappointing. What's more I'm not going to put in a link. Don't want any craven dizzy-eyed minnow types getting hold of it and getting carried away!

It's surprising what you can find if you know where to look

That certainly applies to our cupboards and wardrobes, since we've finished sorting and reorganising them with all our newly transported gear. There were a few finds along the way. Bits and pieces that had somehow got pushed to the back or caught in something else and then been forgotten about. Until of course they are needed and then couldn't be found. So you buy another. This is presumable why in France I have amongst other things, two rolling pins, two potato mashers, five pairs of scissors, two steels for sharpening knives and 4 packets of cocktail sticks. Oh and two jars of marmite. But that's totally understandable, so doesn't count. Not that there'll be any problems finding new homes for the unwanted surplus items. We haven't exactly been lazing around since we got back, so that's all in hand.  The marmite of course stays here! 

I'm looking forward to living in one place. There are definite drawbacks to having a double quantity of cupboards to get things lost in. You tend to go slightly demented trying to remember firstly, what's in which house, and then where in that house and which cupboard. Usually it turns out to be the wrong guess and it is in the other house. So the relentless searching of the first few days after you've arrived back is in vain. In any case to begin with you can't find anything, because you have the storage layout of the house you've just left, still firmly in your brain. But as of now we've just three more months of dual house life to go before one-house sanity kicks in.

Salsify's cousin-Scorsonère

Chinon market was up and running well yesterday, Thursday. Our first time back since we arrived. Surprised at the number of stalls as at this time in previous years it's been much smaller. The clothes stalls were missing - they're pretty much for spring/summer - so it was down to the food essentials. Picked up vegetables from the bio-stall. Just love their produce. It all looked soooo gorgeous. They had Salsify. Heard of it, eaten it at restaurants a few times and like it, but not seen it before in it's natural state.They also had a vegetable called, Scorsonère, which is basically a black salsify. So we bought some to try. Picked up some shitake mushrooms that are grown locally on the way to Saumur, from Chantelle, who specialises in mushrooms and had about six varieties on sale. After heading along to one of the Anglo-French groups we belong to, we called into look at a weaving display. Spinning, weaving, dyeing and knitting are well supported here. Annie Erens a French friend, is particularly fascinated by it and has been studying and practising it all for some time. She's usually behind all the weaving events in Chinon, so was there when we called in yesterday, along with a lady called Iliana, whose is originally from Lithuania, which has it's own weaving pattern designs. So was all really interesting. Years ago Mike made me an inkle loom and I taught myself to weave on it. Eventually I got rid of it and haven't the same enthusiasm to return to it now. In any case photography is really my main thing. But it was certainly good to see looms being used. Some of the work was so fine with the same delicacy and intricacy of design as lace work. Quite amazing. Don't think I'd have the patience.

Log fires burning

Log fires are irresistible. There's a quality about the heat along with the glow of the flame that warms the spirits as much as the bott, knees and other chilled parts of the anatomy. And a log fire quickly brightens up a grey day.  We got back to French grey-dom on Thursday after nearly two months of English grey-dom. The house was fine, but definitely needed a few burning logs to take off the edge. We keep our supply of logs in our garage along with a chain saw. Not an item I ever thought would feature on our list of domestic essentials. Chainsaws, at least in my mind, are associated with remote living and lumberjacks. But here, our log supplier chops and delivers in large pieces, so we need a chainsaw to cut them to a more practical/usable sizes.  Log fires are the norm as the main heat source. Modern houses like ours have central heating, but the cost of electricity is pretty high compared to the cost of logs so like everyone else, we had a stove installed and it's brilliant. Really does the job.  Mike has become a real dab-hand - avoir le tour de main - with the chainsaw and lighting the fire, I am a novice by comparison.

So Thursday morning, after an overnight crossing, we arrived with loaded car.  Our move to France has officially begun. It was so loaded with household paraphernalia, I'm surprised we weren't doing wheelies all the way back home to Cravant. Wasn't sure how 'wheelies' translates in French, so looked it up. There are a couple of options. Le wheeling or la roue arrière. I prefer Le Wheeling. It's more succinct and fun. I suppose it would be used with faire (+le wheeling). But translator sites seem to come up with la roue arrière as the primary expression. So. . . I'm surprised with the amount of gear that we had loaded in the car, que nous ne faisions pas la roue arrière sur le chemin du retour en France. We had boxes and cases with clothes, shoes, books, crockery, musical instruments. If customs had done a spot check on us we'd have been pretty pissed off having to unload that pile. Fortunately in all the time we've been coming to France, (twenty-five years including holidays and work) we've only been spot-checked once.The customs officer looked in the boot and found a large teddy bear staring back at him. Mine of course - Beeton, whose slightly rotund proportions suggests the digestion of one too many of his namesakes recipes. Hope he doesn't read this!

Anyway everything is now unloaded and scattered about the place, and being unpacked bit by bit, as we attempt to reorganise cupboards and pick out the things here we want to get rid of.  We've caught up with neighbours, had calls from friends. I've been to a committee meeting for one of our Anglo/French groups, and can now confirm a photographic exhibition in October for two weeks from Sat 5th. There are five of us involved. Steph, the only female chef in town who owns and runs La Treille in Chinon, which is a hotel as well as a restaurant and strangely, without a website, had her first baby in November, just after we'd left. Yesterday we saw and met Juliette for the first time. She is so pretty with dark brown eyes, a real shock of dark hair - un amass de cheveux châtain foncé. We bought a Galette des Rois - a traditional 'cake' for Epiphany of puff pastry and frangipane from our favourite Chinon boulangerie in Place Mirabeau. Light as a feather and a perfect level of sweetness with a little trinket inside -as our Christmas Puddings used to have & perhaps still do? Being commercially made, our trinket was a tiny pink china macaron. Real macarons are very popular here and locally made, with a fantastic choice of flavours and colours. Today we're into Chinon again for the 'small in winter' Sunday morning market and lunch at Café des Arts. 

So - we're off to a good start in 2013. Hope it's started well for you too.

What more could a Marmite lover get for Christmas?

I've really made it. Is this fame or what? Live I was. Live, over Oxford street amongst the Marmite Christmas lights. Will life ever be the same again?  I always knew my Marmite obsession would lead to higher things. But this just took the toast with butter and marmite! I could have said 'biscuit'. But who wants drab and dull at this time of the year.  As to what's next. Well. . . the calendar of course! Marmite Girls. I'd be Miss August as my birthday's that month. There I'd be holding my jar of marmite in a tantalisingly strategic fashion. Some of my friends would probably and unkindly say that I'd only need a small jar. But I can take the jibes! Then of course there'd be the film and the stage versions. 2013 is suddenly looking distinctly promising. Who needs to go to France!

Marmite has served me well. And for some time. How could I forget the miniscule savoury sample of marmite in my 'fresher' pack at Uni., the size of a two pound coin that lasted about two minutes? Or my godson's birthday present to me one year, surpassing himself with a box of marmite jars containing the smallest to the very largest. Flying ducks on your wall. You're kidding. Flying marmite jars - empty ones mind you. That's stylish. 

There was a slight aberration (from my point of view) by the producers of Marmite with the arrival of squeegy Marmite. For goodness sake. No way does the marmite from that container taste the same as from the traditional jar. I refuse to be convinced. In any case, who wants a runny Marmite that bears an unfortunate resemblance to the contents of a baby's nappy. The only thing I think that runny Marmite is good for is art classes. I wrote humorously to Marmite to explain all this. Fortunately someone replied humorously with a two-page letter, and included a voucher for a large jar of Marmite and a set of Marmite coasters. Since then I have acquired a pair of Marmite socks with Love on one and Hate on the other; a Marmite T-Shirt, a Marmite coffee cup and saucer and a Marmite fridge magnet. I've eaten my way through quite a few jars of the delicious brown stuff as well as trying Marmite cereal bars. That was a real turn up. An unexpected treat - at least for me. Bristol station one mid-week morning, to discover free Marmite cereal bar samples being handed out at every entrance/exit.  Mike was somewhat perplexed at the time it took us to leave the station and go to the Arnolfini Gallery, which was the whole purpose of us being there, as well as by the size of my coat pockets, which by then, were almost bursting with cereal bars.


So now, as of Thursday 20 December, my dedication to the cause has paid off, and I've been inspired to experiment with foodie things for the festive season. Having just made a batch of delicious lavender ice cream, I want something chilled and savoury as an alternative.  

A Marmite sorbet!  Imagine that!

Heston Blumenthal eat your heart out!

Happy holidays everyone. Go well and I hope 2013 is everything you would like it to be.

Back Blog

End of the Season

We've been back in BOA a month now and totally absorbed in sorting things out in and for the house. All of which has had to take priority, but has meant no time for blogging, photography etc.  However yesterday morning I managed at last to get out early and got some shots in and some editing done. Then got the blog underway, loads of music stuff done and finally French conversation. All in all, a satisfying day. 

Us 'no longer working' types clearly have the opportunity to influence what we do as well as when do it, even though things still don't always work out as planned. I  appreciate that 'no longer working' is a mouthful to say, but I really loathe the word 'retired'.  It's stupid.  What exactly does it mean?  And as for being shy and retiring. Ha! I tried that one on some long-time pals when I was having a pathetic moment, a while back, after several glasses of wine. Shy and retiring? Me? They all just burst out laughing. No mileage in that idea. I've never been retiring or shy either in thought, word or deed. So I don't see why I should start now.

One good thing is that our book problem has been resolved. Ex- Libris, our local bookshop, has taken quite a few. Friends are taking some others. Another friend, Dickie, is having all my German paperbacks by Heinrich Böll (H.B.) who she actually met on one occasion.  I just love his writing. I've held on to my favourite book of his - Group Portrait with A Lady. Just couldn't part with it. I found out about H.B., purely by chance while on holiday in Canada and the States, back in '86. My knowledge of German Literature at this time was quite limited. but Helen an Israeli from Tel Aviv, who we met while travelling through the Canadian Rockies phase, told me about him. Helen and I became pen pals, which lasted for about twelve years until she died. Hers was an extraordinary story and a precious friendship, from which I learnt so much. As to the remainder of our books . . .well we're quite happy with them. Most will go into storage while some will come with us to France.

Took delivery of a sack yesterday afternoon, when Bradford on Avon Community Agriculture Co-operative came by to deliver some vegetables. The link is straight to their website. Worth a look. BOCA is a new food initiative, which supplies local residents with 'affordable seasonal fruit and vegetables'. It all looks so delicious. This is the first time we've been able to buy/support. We've always been away. Really pleased with the quality and the quantity. Just hope it can keep going.

The Kindle's been working over time. Just finished The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton.
An intriguing chain of events that begin in London during WW2 and finish in the present. The story development is so well-handled and you only get an idea of where it's going to land right at the very end. Now started The Lewis Man by Peter May. A superb thriller, which had to get published in France where it won an award, after being turned down by  English publishers. It's set in the Outer Hebrides. I'm definitely an Ian Rankin/Rebus fan, the same way as I'm a Le Carré/Smiley fan. Addicted is probably a better description. Anyway Peter May as enticed me away to a new landscape and a new and equally gnarled detective character. I'm really on a roll with reading at the moment. Neither of these books I've wanted to put down. Remember one time on my way into work on the London Underground with a Richard Harris novel stuffed in my bag. Sat down (that was a surprise!) and started reading. Managed to overshoot my station by three stops. Got off. Crossed over to the other platform, got back on the tube, started reading and overshot in the other direction. I put the book away!



Good weekends all!!

Busy week

I have been wondering whether I really can write a blog called Tales from BOA, or if I should just stick to Tales from Cravant. After all we're only going to be here for two months.  Geographically Tales from BOA  would be accurate. But then I thought perhaps two blogs would cause the very confusion I was trying to avoid, as well as being a bit over the top and probably unsustainable. In any case the idea before I left France had been to write a blog in French. But that would mean I'd need a third blog address. Then even I'd be confused. French bits no doubt would start creeping into the English blog and English bits into the French blog. Worse still I could run out of ideas, in any language. Then what? noideasforablog.blogspot.com? So for sanity's sake I'm sticking to one blog, Tales from Cravant, which until 2 January 2013 will cover stuff from Bradford on Avon. As to the French blog - we'll I'll see.

We've had a great first week back. Seen lots of friends. Taken loads of photos, mostly macro. Yesterday morning there was a farewell coffee and cake 'gathering', about twenty of us, at the Fat Fowl for friends Moira and Anthony who are moving to Skye. They leave on Tuesday. Last night we went to Jenny and Rob's joint 60th ceilidh birthday party at their village hall in Holt. Such fun. Got absolutely hysterical at one point. Crying with laughter as everything went hopelessly wrong. I was aching everywhere. This morning, we've been absorbing the Beeb fiasco, and catching up with the papers etc. Also got some bread made, more cutting back done in our garden and made a start on our books. So we've not been idle.


The books are a real problem. Only a few can come to France and we don't want loads of them in storage. But at the same time, when we move back, we want books in the house. So it's complicated. Mike and I are as bad as each other. As you pull them off the shelves the books start weaving their magic, and you have to sit down and read at them. Before you know it - another hour has gone by.  Books are precious friends!  So I'm forcing myself to be rational: how many times have I read this book? What can I remember about it? What did I really like about it. Am I truly going to read it again? I started going through them one by one, which in itself takes a long time. There are some books I must have read at least a dozen times and I know that at some point I'll need my fix and will read them yet again. Some of them I've read every year for as long as I can remember, but only as winter kicks in and Christmas gets nearer. Regressive and at least for me, gems, such as  A Christmas Carol and The Wind in the Willows. The really tricky books are those that I've only read once, but which made such a lasting first impression, that I've not as yet been able to read them a second time. They've been sitting on our book shelves for a few years, offering visual reminders of amazing reads:  Marguerite Duras - La Douleur, Heinrich Böll - Group Portrait of A Lady, The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov, Joseph Heller - Catch-22.  These and a few others I either read straight through in one sitting or over a couple of days. Since then I only have to look at each cover and wham. There's still a powerful response.

Anyway we've not done too badly. There are three large boxes sorted out. One of them contains those books I'm 'joined at the hip with'. The others, books we've both agreed can be sacrificed. Then it's a question of where they go?  No point selling fiction on Amazon. Our local book shop that keeps a second-hand section, looks very overwhelmed. Charity shops probably. Of course amid all this book soul-searching and book angst, what did I do. I bought another book. 

One of the local groups in BOA - the Art Association organises various events throughout the year. I'd booked a place in advance for one which took place last week, just after we got back.  A talk by Persephone Books. Persephone is a small team of two with a turnover of trainees to help, who re-publish neglected fiction and non-fiction by women, for women and about women. I've been on their mailing list for a while. The first book of theirs that I read was written by Winifred Watson in 1938 - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a day. Wonderful writing. Couldn't put it down. Read it in a day. Anyway the talk was held at the Fat Fowl, and came with tea and cakes. Couldn't resist a collection of short stories, available at a special price of £10 and which I have just started to read. The books are available through Amazon and some also on Kindle. So if you've not heard of them, suggest you take a look.
Well worth it.


 













 

Stuffing a national treasure

Well we're back in BOA. Got in early hours of yesterday morning having driven through torrential rain on our side of the channel. Seemed to be a lot of customs activity checking lorries going through. Can only assume there was an alert on. Crossing was a bit up and down, literally, but having taken something in advance, we were fine. Port traffic meant we  disembarked about 30 minutes late. Very busy, but customs checks were moving along. We got in at about 12.30pm. Not too bad. Our friend John had got some milk and bread in for us and as always had sorted through our mail in his usual meticulous fashion. Only this time he'd had four months worth to deal with. Nonetheless it was all laid out, Bic style in  'her' and 'his'piles.  Mike discovered he had a tax rebate - three figures - so useful. And I discovered I was now eligible to register to receive my pension. Got to bed around 2am. Up at 8am. Ploughed through the paperwork. Online pension registration didn't seem to be working, so I phoned the 'special' number and had a very nice lady take my details. Then she asked if I was considering delaying receiving my pension in order to get a better deal or lump sum or something. Politely, I explained to her I had already had an 18 month delay from my 60th birthday before receiving my stately dues, because of changes to the system, and suggested that perhaps I should automatically receive 'the better deal'. Strangely she laughed! Finally all was correctly registered and we parted company on the best of terms. So as of 6 Jan 2013 I officially become an OAP.  What more could a girl want.
By lunchtime we were asleep.  Got going again in time for me to start my first advanced French conversation group at The Dandylion pub. Mike's starting his group next week. Called 'French Upstairs' I got there for 6pm had about an hour with two others. Gérard who leads it is a very nice guy. Apparently there's usually five or six people, but most were away this week. Then afterwards I shot off round to a near neighbours to meet up with Mike and some others for dinner. Great evening, lovely food. We left around midnight. 

This morning of course we were both wide-awake at 7am. It was only a matter of time before fatigue kicked in. I'd made arrangements to meet some friends for coffee. On the way I went to buy some vegetables from the lady grocer in The Shambles in the centre of BOA.The street really doesn't look that different today, from the photo here.  Anyway I asked for two big flat mushrooms. Or so I thought. She stared at me and asked if I'd meant to say that. 'What did I say then?'. 'You asked for two big flat tomatoes'.  I'd already managed earlier this morning to write out our Sainsburys shopping list in French. 
Now I've just decided to eat some Quaker Apply and Blueberry Porridge oats, which is the only thing I use the microwave for. And of course it has overflowed all over inside and  down the side of the bowl. What was left of my porridge was delicious. I'm approaching equipment with care for the rest of the day.

My hazy gloom however was only momentary. Let's try this out. What does
Get stuffed mean. I can think of a few interpretations. To get stuffed, as in eating too much. Why don't you get stuffed? - the unpolite version of to please mind you're own business and go away. Researching further, there are various websites telling you where
to get stuffed crust pizzas. There is a cookery programme called the Get Stuffed Cookery Show, an ITV late-night show offering apparently 'unpretentious recipes for the totally clueless'. Tring Festival has a Get Stuffed Comedy club. And of course there's www.thegetstuffed.co.uk. an old established company dealing with all aspects of taxidermy. 
The next thing I researched was the meaning of A National Treasure. Stephen Fry is often referred to as a national treasure (N.T.). Sir Winston Churchill was described by Queen as an N.T. in 1952. David Attenborough is regarded as another one. A more official definition of a national treasure is an artefact, institution, or public figure regarded as being 'emblematic of a nation’s cultural heritage or identity'. No surprises there.

So it was very interesting this morning to read about Albert at the Foreign Office.
I want to keep this in perspective. Here in the UK, like everywhere else, we're in dire economic straits. Drastic action required we're told. Which is why this government of ours is cutting everything back it can gets its paws on. We know it. We feel it. William Hague our Foreign Secretary views deep cuts to public spending as 'essential to the future of the country'. That must be why he's signed a £10,000 bill on behalf of us taxpayers to have Albert the Anaconda who has hung in the F.O.library for 120 years, re-stuffed. Albert was last stuffed about fifty years ago.  A spokesman for the F.O. stated "we will not scale back in our dedication to preserve this historic national treasure". The work was carried out by a specialist team from the Natural History Museum. Shame none of us are going to see it.