DÉGUSTATION

Chateau de Petit Thouars





We went wine tasting. We drove over to the Chateau of Petit Thouars which is above the town of Saint Germain along the road that goes to Chinon. We met with the owner's son, Sebastian, who gave us a tasting tour of their rosés and reds. All of their wines are Chinons. We sampled their 2005 Reserve and 2008 and 2009 reds. We likeded them.
Sebastian told us about a recent trip he made to the US to promote the family's wines. He said he went to a big food and wine expo in Los Angeles but there wasn't much interest in the product in California. However, he did sell 2500 cases in Colorado.

FAUNA

Our well-stocked fish pond.

We have been seeing some interesting wildlife in and around our village.
We walked up through the vineyards for our evening walk, several nights ago. We saw lots of rabbits running through the fields.
When we went to visit Christelle and her new man, Yannick we walked around her village of Chaintres after dinner. We saw lots of glow-worms casting a strange green light out their rear ends.
There are always swallows and bats everywhere but no sightings yet of hedgehogs, frogs or boar.

CLAFOUTIS TIME AGAIN

We spent the morning at Karen's house. We had breakfast with Sarah and Vincent from Paris by way of Idaho. They are interested in buying the house next door to us. In the afternoon they came over to Montsoreau to see the house. I also got to see it for the first time.
The house is very small. There are two rooms above the garage and another big space in the grenier. There is a toilet and a shower but no kitchen. The cave is pretty big and is connected to our garage. Vincent the Frenchman was very hesitant about the amount of work that would need to be done. He wanted to get estimates for how much it would cost to replace the roof and rebuild the chimney stack. Sarah the Idahoan was far more enthusiastic. She was ready to buy it on the spot. It will be interesting to see if they go ahead and buy the house and what they will make of it.

FRESH OFF THE BOAT

Fruits de mer





Phil invited us over for Sunday lunch. He ordered a boatload of seafood from the market and went to pick it up when we came by. Everything came arranged on a bed of seaweed on the polystyrene boat - shucked oysters, shrimp with heads and legs, crawdads with pincers, sea snails (boulot) and tiny krill-like shrimp you think are more trouble than they are worth (but they aren't). He served a chilled Sancerre with the seafood.

After lunch, he took us on a tour of the neighborhood. Above his cave is a nice walk with more troglodyte caves. We met some of his neighbors and took in the views across the valley. A very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

HERO OF ABOUKIR

Quoted from the website of the Chateau de Petit Thouars:

Aristide Aubert du Petit Thouars (or Dupetit Thouars as it was spelled during the Revolution) fought in the Independence war of America, sailed the seas seeking La Pérouse and died heroically in Aboukir during Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt ; captain of the Tonnant, he had his right arm shot away, then the left and finally one of his legs was taken off by a cannonball. Refusing to give up command, he insisted on being put in a tub of bran that was on deck and led his men until he collapsed from blood loss. One of his final orders was to nail the Tricolour to the mast so it could not be taken down in surrender.

Bran will never seem the same!

WALK TO CANDES

We took a morning stroll up to the tea shop and bookstore and antique shop in Càndes. Eric was pleased to see us. We were the first customers of the day. We had coffee and chatted. Eric told us that his old shop in the middle of the town has been sold again. Last year it was a tea shop and bookstore but that closed at the end of the season. Eric says it is going to be a lamp and lampshade store - like the world needs that.

We walked the long way back to Montsoreau. We crossed the bridge to take a look at the toll the drought is having on the Loire. The level of the river is very low. There are sand bank islands in the middle and wide sandy beaches where there should be water. We even saw some fish in the river, something I've never seen before when the water level has been higher.

GENNES

Homo Sapiens checks out a property he might like to buy.

Gennes was delightful. Rich had been there several weeks earlier to pay our water bill. Our small town water company was acquired by Veolia, a giant multinational corporation. Their regional headquarters are in Gennes so Rich had to go there to set up the automatic payment.. He was very excited to discover a dolmen that he wanted me to see.





Gennes was a Gallo-Roman settlement in the day. There is a Roman amphitheatre just outside the village but we could not get to see it. There is also a Rue de Nymphée that runs up a hill to a small church that probably was built on the foundations of a temple dedicated to water spirits.

Gennes is notable for another reason. The bridge over the Loire was defended by a group of cadets from the Cavalry School during the Battle of France. Their task was simply to slow the advance of the Germans which they did. Their sacrifice is commemerated in the churchyard of St. Eusebe (The Moroccan soldiers who also participated are barely mentioned, however).

CUNAULT

Cunault is such a beautiful place. The high arches and tall columns direct your eye and mind upwards. The tuffeau fills the space with light making the whole building seem like an enclosure for the spirit.

The statue of St. Catherine is a special place of pilgrimmage for young woman hoping to find a husband. St. Catherine is depicted with the instruments of her torture and martyrdom - the wheel and the sword.

WEEKLY MARKET

Mon petit chou

Up early to visit the market. Checked in at the bakery first for some fresh pains au chocolate and bread. Madame wasn't there but her assistant was tres jolie as ever. A handwritten sign about a temporary closure for a change of ownership was a sad reminder that things are about to change.

I walked through the market with Rich. We bought fruit and vegetables from his favorite vendor. We had ripe pears for breakfast. We sampled a selection of goat cheeses before deciding on a creamy, a hard and an ashy. The little round cheeses are called crottins, I think (wordreference.com says that crottin can also mean "horse dung").

THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW

The view through our window.

Directly opposite is the entrance to the chateau.

TROGLO DAYS IN TURQUANT

Local color at the Bistroglo.

This weekend is big on the Loire. The Fête du Velo is rolling through the countryside all along the Loire. The Rockrider is ready to join the fun.

In our village, and in the neighboring villages it is Open Caves Days. The village of Turquant is a troglodyte arts and crafts center. There are pottery and glass studios in the the caves as well as restaurants and cafes. We stopped in at Bistroglo for coffee and a glass of wine. With a glass of red wine in front of me and my man beside me I really felt that I had arrived in France.

We walked around the village visiting each of the open studios. We tried the freshly baked fouée (one stuffed with rillette, the other lavished with chocolate) as we walked around.

When we got back home Troglo Phil came by. We walked up the village to the open cave of Bertignolle. We walked through the huge underground warehouse. The grapes are produced in the village of Bertignolle in the Véron region but they have no caves on that side of the river so they make and store the wine in our village. It is a Chinon wine that is barreled for a year then bottled for a year before being released. We sampled the 2006, 2008, and the 2009 as well as a rosé. I liked the 2006 the best.

IN TRANSIT

A mighty Airbus

I was up bright and early at 3am for my flight to France. Unfortunately, my flight wasn't until 9:25 so I had a couple of hours to kill before the rest of the household was up. Jetlag - it's an ugly thing.

Timmy got up at about 7am and we were on the way to the airport by 7:15. It was lashing down rain - the Summer Monsoon, I suppose - but there wasn't much traffic at that time of the morning so we made good time.

Ryanair had only one line, a very long line, for check-in. I had already checked-in online (along with everybody else, I suppose) but that didn't mean I could skip the bag-drop queue. When I got to the desk, finally, the agent had never heard of a CPAP machine. I was diverted to the ticket counter for further investigation. That agent waved me on without much fuss though he seemed a little surprised that I was even asking about it.

I had plenty of time for breakfast in the new terminal.

A DAY IN BRAY

I spent the day in Bray catching up with my brother John and his family.
I took the LUAS to Connolly Station (Dubliners still refer to it as Amiens Street Station) then rode the DART along the edge of Dublin Bay to Bray.

John picked me up in Bray. He had Ilir and Radu with him but Ilir hopped out to take the train into Dublin.

It was spitting rain. We went back to John's house to have lunch. Radu chatted the whole way back. He is such a neat kid. The last time I saw him was two years ago when he was up and walking but still very much a baby. Now, he has completed junior infants and will be going into senior infants in the Fall. He attends a Montessori school in Bray. Whatever they are doing there it is definitely working. He is bright and inquisitive.

We ate our lunch then headed back downtown to meet with Ligia at the clinic. Business has slowed a bit but they have maintained a solid client base that is helping to keep them going through the crisis. John showed me his new office space that he has built from a prefab garden shed. This space will free up floor space in the clinic and give him a place to do freelance work in his own profession while still keeping an eye on the backroom operations of a busy dental practice.

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY

I found this gem when I was wandering around Mary Street. The building is now a Penney's.

CAFE BELL

Olde Worlde Cafe Bell

I ventured out for the first time today. I have been dealing with serious jetlag for the last three days. On Monday when I arrived I had breakfast then went to bed for about seven hours. On Tuesday, I woke up at 3 am but I was back in bed by midday for another 6 hours. Today, I vowed to stay up the whole day.
I took the bus into town. The 150 route has changed dramatically. It no longer goes down the Crumlin Road like it has for the past 50 years. Now it goes down Kildare Road and then through Sundrive on Clogher Road. It crosses the canal at Donore Avenue then heads down the Coomb and into Town along its old route. It was nice to see a different part of the city but I missed the view of our old house on Crumlin Road.

I had lunch at the Cafe Bell. I started out at Cornucopia but the line was so long I couldn't see the menu board. I walked over in the direction of George's Market. In the laneway behind BrwonThomas I saw a sign for Cafe Bell through the archway. I decided to check it out.

The archway led into a small courtyard behind St. Theresa's Carmalite Church. The cafe looked like it was part of the monastery. Inside, there was a single room with chandaliers and tables. It was probably the priests' front room originally.

ALREADY WATCHING JEREMY KYLE

STORMY WEATHER

The skyscrappers of Charlotte under the gathering storm

We taxied out to the runway and sat there as the sky darkened. The pilot came on the intercom and told us there was a storm coming through. He said the airport had been closed and we would have to wait on the ground until the storm passed. We waited for more than an hour. Buckets of rain lashed the plane. It looked like we were going to go back to the terminal. But as suddenly as it started it was all over. We took off and never looked back.