Exploring 22 with a friend from England

I have a lovely few days with Pats, a good friend from Cornwall, who has been staying with me. We have been really lucky with the weather this week and have walked every day and visited interesting places where I had never been before. I particularly liked the town of Moncontour.

 

The sunshine lit up the stone houses and brought the town to life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were lots of paths which we walked along taking us up out of the town straight into the countryside and we spent a very pleasant time wandering about there.

 

 

We also went up to Lannion market - a huge market - which had wonderful veggies and fruit and food being cooked at different stalls by people from different parts of the world.

 

I bought some lovely plums - huge ones - as big as oranges, fresh figs, an enormous bunch of watercress and could have bought much more.

 

 

 

From the market we drove towards Tregou Trevignec where a ex-neighbour now lives and stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant where we had an unexpectedly good lunch at the Restaurant Basque in Louannec, La Villa Belza.  Excellent starter of warm goats cheese in a galette with salad and a good dressing.  This was followed by layers of sautéd potatoes with gammon slices, pancetta, mozarella and red pepper with aubergine, courgettes, tomatoes and another lovely dressing.  Pats finished her meal with chocolate mousse and I indulged in crème brulée scattered with pear.  The presentation and the quality of the food was excellent and was a mixture of Breton and Basque.  The waitress was friendly and the restaurant was clean and welcoming - a good find.  We had water with our meal and chose not to have coffee.  The bill was just under €30 (£24). 

 

Afterwards we drove on hoping to find the house of my ex-neighbour and did.  We had coffee and a chat with her and her family before walking down to the beach and back.

 

The tide was out and Pats sat very close to a rock which looked as if it could fall into the sea at any moment.

 

There were lots of camper vans parked up in the car park overlooking the bay - a lovely place to spend some time.

This morning we drove to Guingamp station so Pats could catch her train to Paris as the first bit of her journey back to London.  The sunrise was lovely as I drove back home afterwards.

These silos are at the end of the lane where I turn off the main road just over two miles from home in silhouette.

Three things I like:

1.   Having visitors and sharing my life for a while, visiting places I wouldn't go to if I didn't have a visitor to show around.
2.   Realising that it's the last day of Summer today and that a new season begins tomorrow.
3.   Trying new things - this afternoon - tai chi!

Walking around St André

I went for a walk the other afternoon,  from my hamlet through the woods, and these are some of the photographs which I took.

They seem to be doing a lot of logging on the slopes of the valley and not long after this point I lost the path and started up and across a field but couldn't seem to find a way out and had to backtrack.

 

There were lots of fungi looking like this one but I have no idea what they were.

I did find this though, a parasol mushroom.  I had it identified by someone very knowledgeable in mycology but by then it had dried out too much for me to want to eat it.  I shall know where to look for it next year now.

 

 

Unfortunately, my newly found expert in fungi is leaving Brittany to return to the UK to live, so I won't have his expertise on hand for this Autumn's bounty.  Hopefully I can contact him with photographs by email and get his help that way.

 

As I came back round my field I found that six of my newest Light Sussex hens were perching under the old table - I can count - two of them had jumped down by the time I got the camera switched on again!  There are so many feathers on the ground it almost looks as if a fox attack has occurred, but it's just where they've been moulting.

   

 

 



 

Scones, books and garden stuff

I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon and I've just made scones for the first time.  I looked at two recipes and in spite of the fact that I did bits from each one, they seem to have come out of the oven looking good enough to eat.

 

With the addition of butter, last week's homemade blackberry jam and Cornish clotted cream, courtesy of Andy and Flick who had just been to Cornwall, they were more than good enough to eat.  In fact they were scrumptious and I have just finished demolishing my second one.

 

 

Yesterday I went to Pommerit le Viscomte to collect some free books.  I arrived early and while I waited for the books to arrive at the parking by the church I took two photographs.  The first is of the church and grounds and the second of a sign which I thought was funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was astonished when the people getting rid of their books brought out five large boxes of them.  I have now to buy some more materials for shelves.

 

 

I've been pruning in the garden.  Once I get a pair of secateurs in my hand I seem to have moments of something near obsession with cutting anything that's not moving.  It's the same every year though and nothing ever seems to suffer permanent damage so I continue with what I enjoy.   The buddleia bushes - almost trees beforehand - were the first victims, closely followed by the wisteria, campsis and grape vine.  The leaves on the vine needed removing to allow the last of the Autumn sunshine to reach the almost ripened grapes.

 

Here are some photos of bits of the garden and me ready to sunbathe.

 

 

 

 

Some of the tomatoes, courgettes and cucumbers that I harvested this week. 

 

Yesterday we cleared the polytunnel of tomatoes as blight finally arrived here.  I've never had blight before and I am lucky to get it so late as some people over here have had no tomatoes to speak of.  Anyway, we pulled out all the plants and I now have loads of the healthy green tomatoes to ripen.  I shall probably use the space for salad leaves.   I also started plaiting up the dried onions and brought some of them down to the garage for storage and so they're nearer to the kitchen.

 

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Trying a new recipe and finding that it works.

2.   Meeting my neighbour's new grandson for the first time.

3.   Clearing out all my outsize trousers and making space in my bedroom.

 

 

Peace and quiet in St André



We've had a wonderful week here weatherwise.  It's been really hot and I've enjoyed myself sitting out in the sun and reading a Tony Parsons book "Man and Boy" over the last two days.  I've just started the sequel "Man and Wife", but need to forget that for a moment and start the Book Club book which I must have read by 24 September in time for the meeting.

 

 

 

Yesterday the greengrocery section of the supermarket had €1 bags of mushrooms (nearly a kilo) oranges (1.75kg- 9 fruits) and three globe artichokes.  I'm going to make mushroom soup tomorrow and have found a recipe of Gill's from the River Cottage website.  Not sure what to do with the oranges yet, and I ate two of the artichokes as my supper starter yesterday.  The blackberries have been so good this year that I've picked loads and loads for sauce and jam from the abandoned next door garden and today I added elderberries from my garden to the mix too.

 












 

 

Before he left for a week in the UK my worker cut in half a large barrel which I'd acquired.  We soaked it in the fish pond for a few days to allow the staves to swell up and become waterproof.  I acquired three free fish and two water snails from an ad on the expat website and these are now happily esconced in the barrel with some oxygenating plant and transplanted iris located on the terrace. 

 

 

 

I had a similar set up in when I lived in Cornwall and when the barrel was cleaned out three years after putting in three fish, I was surprised to find twenty-six fish in there.  To breed, I think they must really have been content in their environment.  As I came into the house from planting up the barrel there was a cricket on the door opening - he was about 3"/75cm long and very active.

 

 

 

My neighbours and I had been discussing mushrooming and they felt they were able safely and surely to identify about three or four edible fungi.  Later in the afternoon they called me to take a photograph of some they had found, this early in a dry September, in their woodland area.  There were some very new girolles and one beautiful cep with just a little bit knocked off the front which they had for their tea.  The photos were dreadful, for some reason I couldn't seem to focus properly and the only one worth posting is the cep in it's location. 

 

 

 

I had a lovely surprise yesterday morning when a letter arrived from an old friend in Cornwall saying she'd like to come and stay during September.  I shall look forward to spending time with her as in the last six years since I left Cornwall, we have only seen each other two or three brief times for a few minutes when we've bumped into each other in Cornwall when I've been back over there.  She'll come by train from London as she's staying with her son at the moment and will take the train from Paris to St Brieuc or Guingamp so I can collect her there.  Several years ago we did a willow weaving course together and a drawing course at The Eden Project.  I'm really pleased she's coming over.

The eight Light Sussex chicks I bought in at ten weeks old are twenty-two weeks old today and so might start laying now unless they have decided not to start laying until late February which sometimes happens with late in the year point of lays.  I've given the hens the run of the goat field today and the barn too and I'm hoping that they might lay in there once they start.  Here are some of them munching grass at the open gate to the next field, not realising that with a couple of steps they have a whole field - that's the problem with hens - only one brain cell between them. 

They are all looking a good size and really healthy so fingers crossed. 

The goats were interested in the open gate and it didn't take long before I had to put a string round the gate and post to make entry more difficult.

However, one string was obviously not enough.

So I added another string to make it more difficult.

Betsy obviously thought Basil might have a better idea of how to get through.

And after some discussion he attempted it himself, but the second string seemed to have done the trick.

The honeysuckle on the drive wall is still flowering profusely.  I can't believe how long it has been in bloom.

Some of the honeysuckle and fennel seedheads have almost covered the postbox, making it difficult to get the letters out with all the bees that settle on the flowers.

The grapes are doing so well again this year.  I shall have to cut some of the leaves off soon to allow them to finish ripening in the last of this summer's sunshine, but some of them are already ripe, sweet and juicy.

















This morning it was grey out there and only 21°C so quite a change. I've pruned some of the shrubs in the big flower bed in the garden and there are huge piles of trimmings waiting to be taken away. This afternoon the sun finally arrived and I sat up on the field with the hens, ducks and goats for a while when I collected the eggs and then out in the garden with a coffee and my book club book, it's by George Pelecanos is is called "The Way Home".

Three things I like:

1.   Surprise visits from friends.
2.   Seeing the sunshine when it seemed as if it was going to be a dull day.
3.   Hearing that my grandson is really enjoying his new class at school.