New Restaurants, Old Ruins and Fresh Crabs

Having been inundated with eggs here this week, I took an old mushroom container full of them over to a friend.   I was telling her about two restaurants my physio had told me about last week and we set off to drive to them.  The first, Auberge de l’Etang Neuf is near St Connan and is in the very modern building built next to and over the lake which houses the Museum of the Resistance Argoat which celebrates the victory against the enemy in the Guingamp area in July 1944.  It’s a very lovely setting, with fisherman fly fishing in the lake and everything so green.  The restaurant was hosting the people involved in the inauguration of the building and so was not open to the general public that day but the staff kindly showed me the menu which was very interesting and I will return to eat there.

 

On the way we stopped at the ruins of an Abbey which I hadn’t come across before.  It was an enormous structure and parts of the very high walls have been stabilised by new masonry work.  There were some very strange cast concrete structures and I have no idea what they are supposed to be - any suggestions gratefully received. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then drove on to Plésidy where another small restaurant, Le Relais St Jacques, is located.  The couple who own it are a Frenchman, Michel Guémard and his North Carolina American wife Léa.  We sat with halves of beer for about an hour chatting to them after their lunchtime customers had gone.  Their menu is good too and when my next visitors come I think it will be on the itinerary.  The couple met on the pilgrim way to Compostela, Spain – taking 60+ days to complete – which I thought was really romantic.  My ex neighbour is doing the walk too in three week chunks in the Autumn each year.  Last year I read a book about Nick Crane’s journey the “wrong” way on the path – Clear Waters Rising – an excellent read.

The chicks born eleven days ago are growing well.  There was one casualty, a cockerel who's legs weren't going in the right direction so there are just three cockerels and one hen chick now.  The chicks who are out in the run, nearly five weeks old now, are huge in comparison and enjoying their freedom in their own run in the rabbit are.  Claude, my white cat, enjoys sitting on top of the run and dreaming about how it would be if he could get to them.

The garden Is coming along nicely now with the heat and the rain being ideal growing conditions.  This is part of the large border

 

and here are two photographs of the plants blooming along the house wall.  The flowers on the clematis are enormous, I'm sure larger than they were last year.

 

Lunch today was courtesy of the fish counter at SuperU where they had brilliant value spider crabs for sale. 

 

 

 

I bought two and dressed one with mayo and piment paste some of which I ate for lunch with some of yesterday's homemade sunflower seed bread, toasted and buttered - scrummy!  I haven't decided how to serve the second one yet.

www.rainbowcottagesinfrance.com has had some nice comments from friends.  The guests who left this morning after a week's stay 'phoned from Rennes airport to say that Mum had left two rings behind in the bedroom.  I located them and agreed to send them by registered post when I go back to England in about four weeks time for the birth of my granddaughter.  The last parcel I sent from France, to my daughter, never arrived, so it seemed safer this way.

 

Three things I like:

 

1.  My friend who stayed a few weeks ago has just become a Great Grandmother!  Her great grandson was born this morning in St Thomas's Hospital, London.  She will henceforth be known as GG!

2.   My lovely - boasting I know - homemade bread.  I have made loaves three times this week and they are just the best.

3.   Picking and making elderflower champagne yesterday.  I am taking steps to ensure it doesn't explode  in the bottles this year.