French Holiday

It feels like ages, I have not blogged since the last day of July! Well, we are back home and things are settling down to normal routines, with the only exception being the confirmation Mrs S just had; she has had a broken bone in her right hand for seven weeks! How did it happen? Office filing work! A big box file fell off a shelf and managed to hit her hand most unfortunately. How’s that for bad luck!

Anyway, finally I have organised pictures and clips so I can share some of them with you.

It is always interesting to see in what state the house and garden is when we get to our holiday home in Normandy after a long drive. Remember the snake? This time the first animal I came across when I inspected the old wood shed was this fellow…

… a stag-beetle on his way into the wood shed. I opened the door to follow him in to see what he would do and where he was heading and found myself staring at the ubiquitous grass snake lying on a shelf twenty centimeters from my face. He was quicker than I was and disappeared before I could chase him with my camera. They are pretty territorial, so I believe it was the very same snake that landed on my head that time.

Since I did not prune the fruit trees last year, we had a decent crop of both plums and apples.

One day, a really hot summer’s day, for once, we went to Domfront, where there was a medieval festival with all sorts of activities. All jolly good fun and pleasing pleasantries.

We like to take a little mini holiday when we are in France, and this year was no different. We went south-east towards some famous wine districts, stopping over at Moulins, an interesting town with plenty of old buildings, full of character. The French love their Jeanne d’Arc, and we found her in the cathedral.

There were some beautiful stained-glass windows, and this one was not difficult to understand.

Talking about glass and character, have a look at this magnificent Grand Café in Moulins. Not bad, eh?

On with the journey! We followed this route…

… which took us to some very interesting places through a beautiful, sometimes breathtaking landscape. The roads were winding along the mountain sides with no barriers of any kind. If you lost concentration while driving, you might end up rolling down the steep mountain side, ruining several vineyards for generations to come.

At the first place we stopped for the night we also did some tasting and were shown some of the wine-producing equipment.

The last two nights we stayed in a place, Vaux en Beaujolais, that has been made famous through a book made into film. Gabriel Chevallier wrote ‘Clochemerle’ in the 1920’s. Everybody knows it is about Vaux, and the main street is even named after the author. The French film starred the comedian and actor Fernandel, and the Brits made their own TV series of it, with British actors of course. The plot is simple; the village people disagree where to put the new ‘pissotière’ with comical consequences.

There is a little spinning theatre with narration in the village centre. Visiting children loved to start the show by pushing the big button and run in and out of the exhibition urinal in the square while their parents were tasting wine in the ‘cave’. Get the picture? Parents enjoying themselves and kids running riot, unsupervised! All too common I’m afraid.

We stayed in the Auberge de Clochemerle, which was a wonderful experience. It was run by a young couple; he was the chef and she the wine expert and head waitress. The food was absolutely sensational, I bet they were going for a one star Michelin rating. They also collaborated with three other couples who ran vineyards offering package deals for a day. The village is tiny but well worth a visit, as is the whole district of Beaujolais.

The village demonstrated a somewhat schizophrenic image, or had they just made a new film from the book?

It was an experience to remember, driving through villages with name signs like wine bottles; we even came through Morgon, which was our wedding wine. I kept saying ‘ooh, I like that one’, nearly every time we entered a village. Life could be worse, couldn't it? In the end we had to return to Normandy so we could sit in front of the fire, yes, the fire, in August! That’s all I have to say about the weather. Full stop!

Au revoir Clochemerle!

When we returned to Normandy... the weather was still...(ooops, I said not to speak about the weather!)... we did not spend as much time as we would have liked in the garden doing garden work due to unforeseen high levels of humidity in the vegetation. I got away with that didn't I?

So one evening we drove to Laval where they had yet another medieval thing going, serving suspicious-looking food, street performances and even 'goosing'. No, not the way you might think!. Have a look!






(Joke for Swedes: "Jaaau e en liden gååsapåg från Skåååuune...")



Au revoir encore une fois! (Or is that 'fois gras'!?)

Off on holiday!

We are going on holiday now, will be back in late August. Luckily we won't be travelling in this car! Talk about contradictory registration plate!

Amanda’s Great German Adventure

My granddaughter arrived pulling her own cabin luggage, the equivalent of an adult suitcase. She likes to do things herself, will not accept any help unless she gets really stuck. Her German holiday was about to begin.

She had a wonderful 8-day week with four adults looking after her, as much as she would let us, that is. She is a very independent and strong-willed little individual, 2 years and 3 months old. Her table manners and fine motor ability are way above that of her peer group. This is quite useful when you eat out, something we did on several occasions.

I will let the video and pictures speak for themselves; I can only say that she had a lot of fun in both sunshine and rain. She went to many of the same places as did my 84-year-old mother a couple of weeks ago, with the added attraction of a visit to a zoo. Her greatest fascination must have been when the elephant "had its hair washed".

I felt a bit sad when she queued up for the security check with her enormous cabin luggage, but I knew she also carried many sweet memories and the cuddly German bear from the Welcome Committee.

Garage Sale – looking for bargains

On Sunday morning a friend of ours rang and said in a slightly excited voice that their neighbour had a power cleaner for sale. Hurry before he sells it to someone else! Of course, it was the day of the garage sale in our area and we were late.

After a quick breakfast we got there in time to view the machine and loads of other stuff. This was only the beginning of a very successful day of a string of bargains filling the car completely. In particular the last place was like a goldmine; they were moving and tried to get rid of as much as possible. The lady of the house was on her own and knew little about the machinery, tools and other gadgets. Any low offer we made, she accepted straight away.

We ended up with a garden vac, power cleaner (from the first place), strimmer, a tool with a rotating brush to weed between flagstones etc. etc. There was enough to set up a hire shop or start a gardening business. Most of them had only been used a few times and one was even still in its packaging! We felt like we were robbing her, but she was only too pleased to get rid of all the stuff, otherwise they would have to pay for moving it all to the UK. So, we were really doing them a favour, were we not? The irony of it all was obviously that I had just finished doing this type of garden work a couple of days ago, but I can now look forward to future gardening with less strain on my poor body.

Best of all was that this lady had a good quality car seat for my granddaughter, who will be visiting shortly. From other ‘garages’ we also got toys, a trike and some lovely little dresses. Little Amanda and her parents are travelling with a low-budget airline and have strict luggage limitations, so we figured we had to stock up a bit on life’s essentials.

This is Saturday’s Welcome Committee.

Gruelling gardening

I have not had much time for blogging for a few days now because I had some unfinished business in the garden and around the house. When I got into the garden the first day equipped with my trusted garden gloves and this ‘three-pronged claw tool’ (don’t know the official name for it, anybody?), I discovered that one of the cats, that come into our garden on a regular basis, had been bird hunting again. In an earlier post I accused squirrels of messing about with our garden lantern, knocking it off the iron pole and smashing it against the patio step. After that incident I have seen on a couple of occasions how a cat comes out of its hiding place under a shrub like a rocket, trying to catch birds sitting on the lantern. All of a sudden I realised how it had happened that first time, because now it had happened again with the replacement lantern ending up on the ground.

The rest of the day (4 hrs actually) I spent on my knees worshipping the Great Garden Gnome, i.e. I clawed weeds out from between the flagstones. There was just too much stuff growing there for the power cleaner that I had hired for the following day. I didn’t exactly look forward to the second day of monotonous work, and when I got up that morning I was stiff and sore but also determined to get the job done.

This time I had all the right equipment in working order, not like the faulty connection last time that got me all wet before starting even. It took me five hours to power-clean the rest of the flagstones; we have quite a few of them; but they are now all squeaky clean all the way to the street as well. Our big front step is now so bright that I recommend the wearing of sunglasses. That evening I was only happy to sit on a chair for hours at Mrs S’s departmental do in a restaurant. Getting up from the chair was another matter altogether!

Volvo

Yes, I was on a roller a lot of the time we were out on our bikes today. The weather was gorgeous today so we just had to get them out. (BTW ‘Volvo’ means ‘I roll’ in Latin. Otherwise our Sunday-best car is a SAAB 9-3. I have to fly the Swedish flag, you know!) Mrs S has a modern bike with thick tyres,


I have a 25-year-old (at least) racer with thin tyres,


so I have to hold back a lot and brake downhill not to run into her. I still have not bought another one despite the fact that it is slightly too small for me. Why did I buy it in the first place? My previous one, a black Bianco (get the joke?), was stolen by one of those organised gangs with a lorry, big metal cutters and a lot of audacity. They just pull up and cut the bikes free, load them onto their vehicle and disappear in the night.

We had a beautiful ride today in the rather flat surroundings, along cycle paths, forest paths and agricultural roads. The ride took us past farms with horses and cows, through open landscape and shady forests with little rivers. You have to take the opportunity; I bet it will flipping rain tomorrow!

As if I didn't know!

I spotted this quiz on CanadianSwiss’ and Mausi’s blogs and just had to do it myself. This is the result:

You scored as Education/Counseling, You should strongly consider majoring in Education, such as early childhood education, middle childhood education, secondary education, or related majors (e.g., Vocational Education, Special Education, P.E./Physical Education). It is possible that the best major for you is your 2nd, 3rd, or even 5th listed category, so be sure to consider ALL majors in your OTHER high scoring categories (below). You may score high in a category you didnt think you would--it is possible that a great major for you is something you once dismissed as not for you. The right major for you will be something 1) you love and enjoy and 2) are really great at it. Consider adding a minor or double majoring to make yourself standout and to combine your interests. Psychology is a great minor for education majors. Please post your results in your myspace/blog/journal. Education/Counseling 100% French/Spanish/OtherLanguage 100% History/Anthropology/LiberalArts 94% English/Journalism/Comm 88% HR/BusinessManagement 81% Psychology/Sociology 81% Biology/Chemistry/Geology 75% PoliticalScience/Philosophy 75% Visual&PerformingArts 75% Physics/Engineering/Computer 56% Nursing/AthleticTraining/Health 56% Accounting/Finance/Marketing 44% Mathematics/Statistics 44% Religion/Theology 25% WHAT MAJOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU? created with QuizFarm.com

It was interesting to see the result; the first six for instance cover most of my working life. I am an ex deputy head and teacher specialising in languages and humanities. Need I say more? Although the quiz was somewhat simplistic, it was accurate and also good fun. :-)