ALAIN AND KATYA

Our English neighbor, Jenny Willis arranged for us to visit the cave of another neighbor. We wanted to see how their cave was set up. We also wanted to get to know Alain and Katya a little better. Their house overlooks our backyard - they have seen all our laundry but we know very little about them.
Alain met us at the door, glasses in hand. Their front door is accessed by way of the little passageway alongside the mairie, the Ruelle de Trois Pigeons. That's a very appropriate name. Alain likes nothing better than shooting pigeons in other people's yards.
Alain took us up to the Haute Rue where he has another property. We walked through the garage to the back where he had built a small vaulted cave. He started us off with a wine he described as "doux". This white wine, a Coteaux de Layon, was very soft and sweet. He followed that with two different bottles of a Saumur-Champigny. The wine was from a local winemaker but there were no labels so I'm not sure exactly what they were. We had a bottle of "épine" next and finished with a white crémant.
In between bottles we were treated to Alain's inpenetratable French dialect. Things got a little easier when Katya came home from work. She is from Saumur - a very understandable dialect.
After our winetasting in the cave Alain asked us if we wanted to visit see how boule de fort is played. He is a member of the private club across the street and like all members he has a key and can bring guests any time. Boule de fort is similar to petanque or bocci ball except that it is always played indoors on a curved court that resembles the bottom of a boat. The ball is made of stone with a belt of iron around it and it is weighted on one side. It takes a lot of skill to get a ball like that to go where you want it to.

HAPPY 14 JUILLET

BEST 14 JUILLET EVER!

Fireworks over the Loire.
Best 14 Juillet ever!

BIG PARADE IN MONTSOREAU

Best parade yet through the streets of Old Montsoreau. The mayor led the parade up our street to the mairie where he passed out the lanterns to the children. Then we all followed the band back down to the Loire and back around to the Place du Mail. This year there were a lot more people than last year - it seemed like about a thousand people. The music and dancing went on until the early hours of the morning.

STEVE AND FOX (STUFFED)

Steve brought this stuffed fox to Bob and Mark's party.
I'm not sure why.

COCO CHANEL LIVED HERE

MRS. WILLIS' SALAD

VISITORS

Ann Morton and Kayla came for a flying visit from Paris.

PEAR TART

The man from LaPeyre was coming by at 6pm to measure all the windows and doors that we want to have replaced. Rich invited Karen to help translate so that we would get an estimate for windows and doors that will pass muster with the ABF (Architect de Batiments de France). We planned for Karen and Nico to stay for dinner.
I tried my hand at making the pear tart that I had tasted at Christelle and Christophe’s house. This is one of Christelle’s specialities (she has many specialities since she is a good cook - and Christophe is no slouch in that department either).
I used the same cheese that Christelle uses, a blue cheese called Fourme d’Ambert. I put a layer of marmalade on the store-bought pastry then topped that with the pears. I crumbled about 100 grammes of cheese on top and dotted everything with butter. I had the oven preheated to 220°C and baked the tart for about 20 minutes until the crust was beautifully golden.
It turned out to be delicious. I think it wa a little different from Christelle’s. Her pears were not overwhelmed by the cheese and everything seemed a little lighter than my tart. Nevertheless, I thought it came out great and everybody said they liked it.

DOLMAN HUNTING

The dolman at Roche Vernaize, outside of Les Trois Moutiers


Tertre des fées, a kind of fairy ring


I went dolman hunting by myself. I had seen on the map a group of four dolman in close proximity to each other on the road out of Les Trois Moutiers. I decided that this would be a good place to start searching since it seemed on the map that they were all close together and in clearly marked villages.

I drove out to Les Trois Moutiers (I think they need a catchier name – something like Moutiersville) and followed a smaller road towards Bernazay, the first dolman on my list. The car was very temperamental. Several times it stopped but I was able to get it going again. I am starting to master the choke.

Bernazay was barely a handful of houses. There were no signs in the village pointing the way to the dolman. As I drove back along the road I saw a small wooden sign for “Sentier des dolmans” that pointed the way down a tractor track through the fields. I parked the car and started walking. I saw another sign that pointed the way down a better trail through the woods. I followed that trail for about 2 kms but never found the dolman. I walked back to the car and headed for the next one on the list, Roche Vernaize.

Roche Vernaize was a small village, too but at least there were street signs. One of the street signs was for the “Impasse de Dolman” so I knew I was in the right place. I parked the car at the entrance to the woods and started walking. I walked for about a kilometer without finding any signs so I was a little discouraged. I decided to walk back to the car. Along the way I saw a pile of rocks in the woods that I hadn’t noticed before. I went to investigate and sure enough this was the dolman.
As I drove back to Les Trois Moutiers I saw another little wooden sign at the side of the road. I stopped to have a look. It pointed the way to “Tertre des fées”. I didn’t know what a tertre was but I did know that fées were fairies. I guessed (correctly as it turned out) that a “tertre des fées” was something like what we would call a fairy fort in Ireland. I went to have a look.
I found a small clearing in the woods that was ringed by large flat boulders forming a circular court area that was probably used for religious ceremonies. The diameter of the court was about 10 metres.


Dolman walks

PORTRAITS OF ANGERS

ANGERS - A THREE-PUB-TOWN

What are the chances of finding an Irish pub in a French city? What are the chances of finding three: L’Irlandais, Dublin’s, and The James Joyce, all of them very Oirish. We had a late afternoon beer at Dublin’s in the pedestrianized old town close to Place de Pilori. I asked the owner if there were a lot of Irish people living in Angers. He said that there were not a lot during the Summer but that come September the place is over run by Irish students. I wondered about that.

HOMESICK FOR MENLO PARK

WOODY ALLEN IN SAUMUR

Rich is in his element in the backyard
(NB: This is NOT Woody Allen)


Le Palais Cinema in Saumur was offering a rare treat. Usually movies in France are presented in French – even foreign movies are dubbed. Woody Allen’s latest movie – Whatever Works – was presented in VOstf (version origninale, subtitres françaises). It was a good opportunity to see how French handled coloquial English.
Except for one lone woman we were the only people at the show. Granted it was the first show of the day (at 5 in the afternoon) but even with a good discount there didn’t seem to be much interest in the movies. Christophe can download any movie that you would want to see and perhaps that is having an effect – less people going to the cinema as a social event and more people staying at home to watch pirated downloads on their big-screen TVs. Maybe also if the theatre offered salted popcorn instead of sugary kettlecorn the audience would be bigger.
As for the movie itself it was vintage Woody Allen. All the elements were there – an older neurotic Jewish man obsessed about his life, a hot nymphy starlet, cameo appearance of New York City playing itself, quirky characters who find a way to transform their lives. All the elements were there except for one – this was a classic Woody Allen movie without Woody Allen. Well worth seeing in any language.

MOT DU JOUR: Á TIRE-LARIGOT

BON VOYAGE, CHRISTELLE

We spent the morning hanging out at the weekly market in Saumur. We met up with Christelle to plan a small party to celebrate Christophe’s birthday and to give her a good send off. On Monday she is starting the pilgrimmage to Santiago de Compostela. She will be walking for two weeks and will cover the part of the route in France (the whole thing would take a month of walking) on foot, staying each night in pilgrim hostels.
After shopping at Leclerc I dropped Rich off at home and I went to the swimming pool in Avoine. There was a big wedding in Càndes so it took nearly 30 minutes to get through with lots of ugly French words exchanged between locals and visitors. In Avoine the area I wanted to go to was blocked off because of the Blues festival (Avoine Zone Blues) but I managed to figure out an alternative way of getting close to the swimming pool.
When I got home Mr. Reynoso had the big smile on his face that told me he had already drunk half a bottle of crémant. I joined him as I busied myself getting ready for the guests. The neighbors, Christian and Mette Racinet, came by to show us their pictures of boating on the Loire. We invited them to stay for dinner.
Christophe and Christelle arrived with kilos of merguez sausage and charcoal. The Racinets brought kilos of pork chops and the Chinon wine. We threw in brochettes of pork and beef and a tomato salad. Every 20 minutes, it seemed Christian went back to his cave for more bottles of wine. Before it was all over (close to one in the morning) we had our first barbeque party of the season in Montsoreau.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

LE TRIANON

Gregoire invited us to have dinner with him at a very special restaurant in Saumur. We were not sure what to expect. We had seen the restaurant from the outside many times as we passed through that part of Saumur. It always looked as if it was closed.
Gregoire lives outside Fontevraud so he came by our house to pick us up. We went in the Visa since Gregoire had taken out the back seats of his Twingo to make it more sporty.
When we got to the restaurant it was pretty deserted. There was a young couple with a small child. The owner, M. Jacques greeted us at the bar. Gregoire had explained to us that the restaurant had been opened by M. Jacques mother in the 30’s and when she died he had taken it over. Very little had changed since the 30’s when it was the hippist place in Saumur.
Gregoire told us that there was no menu – we would eat whatever M. Jacques had cooked for that day. The surly waitress brought a bottle of vin ordinaire and a pichet of tapwater to the table. She followed that with platters of radishes, plates of melon, a bowl of boiled potatoes in a mustard sauce, beet salad, some kind of headcheese, a platter of cold cuts, and lots of crusty bread. She wouldn’t take a plate away until we had finished everything on it.
The second course was a dish of hard boiled eggs in a red sauce. It seemed like a strange offering but it turned out to be delicious. The sauce was a little like enchilada sauce. M. Jacques, who is in his late 80’s came out to tell us that the main course would be steak frites – a slice of fried beef with a platter of homemade fries. We were completely stuffed but we had to finish everything so we got stuck in to the mound of fries. A second bottle of the cheap red wine helped everything go down smoothly.
The cheese course was a single wedge of supermarket brie. We also had some weak (instant) coffee and icecream cones from the freezer.
The bill came to 42 euros and even though it doesn’t sound like it when I list the componants it was one of the best meals we’ve ever had.

FLORA AND FAUNA

The sunflowers are finally showing their faces. Last week when Ted was here there were great fields of green with an yellow lifeboat floating on the ocean. But this week the sunflowers have come into their own. They smile out from the fields, teasing passers-by with their joie-de-vivre.
I have seen several animals since I have been here. Last week on our walk around the village we came across a hedgehog running along the street. Last night we were invited to a neighbor’s house where we met one of their two frogs-in-residence. And today on my bicycle ride to Chinon I came across this dead pine-martin. I was also lucky to see a pair of falcons patrolling the fields as I cycled through.

. . . DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN

We have installed this work of art in our main bedroom on the first floor. TimH’s sister did it especially for us. It is a perfect work of art for our little house in Montsoreau since it suggests that we have died and gone to heaven in this little corner of Paradise.

IL FAIT CHAUD = IT IS HOT!

It has been hot the last couple of days. Yesterday it was just as hot but a thunderstorm in the late afternoon cooled everything down nicely. Not today. The thermometer hanging in the patio registered 48°C or 118°F. Granted that was in full sun but I don’t think that there is any disputing the fact that it is hot – even in the shade.

TRÈVES

After spending some time in Christelle’s class in Cunault we drove back to Saumur along the D751. Christelle’s school is part of a “group scolaire”, a group of three schools in adjoining villages each serving different levels of students. We stopped in one of these villages on the way back to Saumur.
The last time we came to visit Trèves it was pouring down rain and the doors of the church were shut up tight. This time the sun was shining and the doors were open.
St. Aubin’s Church is very definitely Gothic but it has many touches of the Romanesque including the baptismal font with four very Celticy looking figures.
While we were there a French couple came in to look around. I asked the woman where she was from and she said Normandy. I told her I was from Ireland. Her reply was: “Yeah, we conquered you people”.

Cours d'anglais dans une classe française

LA PERLE NOIRE

We went to the campsite restaurant with Stephane for dinner. Things are a little changed there. Harry James, the owner, has set up several Bedouin tents as private dining rooms. They are very colorful. He brought them back from his last trip to Irak where he usually spends the winter when there is no tourist action in our neighborhood.
We had a wonderful meal. I had a shoulder of lamb with frites, Rich had the sèche (calamari), and Stephane had a fried white fish recently caught in the Vienne.
Stephane regaled us with stories of his growing up Francophone and gay in Montreal. We had a very pleasant evening.

TED SPEAKS OF BEER

Ted shows off his math skills as he expounds on the differences between French beer and German beer