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.

Rainbow Cottages in France - my new web page

Finally I've got organised and am ready to advertise both the cottages for letting.  I have already been having guests but didn't previously have a web page for them to view. 

My new web page is called:

 

 rainbowcottagesinfrance.com

 

 

and once I've managed the intricacies of website design I hope to have it up and running properly.  

Meantime, I have done a temporary page with most of the information that potential guests need and anyone can contact me on sandrachubb@orange.fr or 'phone me on 0033 (0)2 96 29 71 96 to book or discuss a potential booking. 

 

Small Cottage is for two people and is just that - a small, newly renovated cottage with combined sitting room and kitchen area and upstairs a double bedroom with ensuite. 

Middle Cottage, also newly renovated, has two bedrooms, one with a 6ft/180cm wide bed and the other with a small 4ft/120cm double bed.  Downstairs the large room has sitting, dining and kitchen areas.  There is a very large Breton fireplace in the sitting room.

 

There are rabbits, Boris, Ruby and Bert, in a fenced off area of the garden and Muscovy ducks on the field along with goats and chickens - the latter lay wonderful free range eggs.  Claude and Gracie the kittens arrived in October 2012 and have grown somewhat since then.

Both cottages are comfortable and well equipped.  They each have a logburner with logs supplied, television with basic UK television channels, wifi etc. etc. The garden is south-facing and there are tables and chairs for relaxing and dining outside. 








I won't go into great details here now as they are all on:

rainbowcottagesinfrance.com

 

 

Today's post is my 200th and it seems fitting that for this post there should be something important happening in St André for me.

Three things I like:

1.  Welcoming guests here from all everywhere - so far they've come from Holland, Germany, Russia, America, Australia, Costa Rica, England and Scotland.
2.  Finally getting myself organised to do the web page.
3.  Having lovely comments left about the cottages, garden, location and host.

Visitors, power cuts and hospital appointments

I had some lovely days this week with my oldest son and three of his friends, staying here in St André. 

The weather was mixed but we all got some good sunshine hours in the garden, particularly on Thursday and everyone is more bronzed than we were at the beginning of the week.  One afternoon saw them over at a friend's house in Bonen and then walking the Nantes Brest canal while I sat in the sunshine and read my book club book on the bank side.

Here are Mike, Matthew (my son), Leslie and Brett -all lovely boys!

The hot tub was popular the first two nights into the early hours of the morning until a power cut in the village seemed to take out the motor.  Where’s a repair man when you need one?  The repair man for my laptop is my son, and he has spent more than a few hours working on problems on my new laptop – just one email account to sort out and it’s done.

The power cut came at 08.15hrs on Friday morning and bizarrely we had one at exactly the same time this morning too.  EDF decided it was nothing to do with them but was to do with my neighbour’s house itself until I called and reported it too and another neighbour telephoned as well.  We were promised a team to arrive in the afternoon and they did.  They had to replace some part on the main pole in the village after hearing about the explosions happening in there simultaneously with the cut.  Unfortunately, the incubator with twelve blue Cream Legbar eggs dropped in temperature during these cuts so the lives of the twelve little chicks due to be born this week was in doubt.  Another cut yesterday and a very short one this morning.  EDF workers have been down both days but seem pretty ineffective.
 

Since we replaced the polytunnel cover last week I have been sowing seeds and some of them have already germinated and are pushing up into quite decent plants.  So I’ve got runner beans, broad beans, courgettes, pumpkins, cucumbers, lots of different salad leaves and tomatoes coming on well. The door still have to be recovered but need some welding so the old ones have been kept for the time being.  I’ve had two decent bowls of strawberries. 
 

I don’t know what sort the plants are, there are lots of different ones but they all taste very good, and one of my guests brought clotted cream with him which makes them taste even better!

The boys left today and took six dozen of my free range eggs back with them.  Yesterday I had the biggest eggs I have ever seen.  It weighed 104g and I wonder if it’s going to turn out to be a triple yolker.  I get lots of double yolkers but have never yet had a triple. 

The nephrologist saw me on Wednesday this week.  The appointment was made after a very high creatinine level on a blood test weeks ago.  This high reading indicates severe kidney disease - which seemed unlikely as I recently had a kidney scan and my kidneys were both deemed very healthy.  Since that high reading there have been two normal ones and the consultant decided that there was no immediate worry but that he would just monitor me with three blood tests over the next six months and another appointment with him in November this year.

The lung specialist appointment this week showed that my oxygen levels were good and my lungs fine.  I asked if we could stop the six monthly appointments and she agreed with the proviso that I have a sleep apnoea overnight recording done in twelve months time and then annually.  Result!

I have yet another medical appointment, on Monday with the endocrinologist.  My parathormone level is still very high but dropping all the time through the last three blood tests.  I am still taking 2g of calcium a day and two doses of Vitamin D each month in the hope that I may absorb more calcium.  I am now on daily folic acid too so let’s hope that is also helping absorption.

So far there have been guests during June in both cottages who all said enjoyed themselves and promised to recommend the accommodation to others. They were my first English guests – previous visitors have been Dutch, German, Russian, Costa Rican, American and Australian.  I have no-on booked in now until the third week of July but there may be some more enquiries from the two websites with which I’m registered.  Anyone reading this who fancies being welcomed to a self-catering holiday in central Brittany in one of two well-renovated stone cottages, only needs to contact me by email at sandrachubb@orange.fr.


 

Here are some photos of the two bedroomed cottage.

The wisteria is just going over now with all the wind and rain it hasn't had much of a chance, but hopefully it will have a second flowering later in the year.

 

Many of the roundabouts here in Brittany have great designs on them but I think my favourite is this one just outside Roscoff with the beach and beach huts recreated.

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Hearing the baby chick cheeping in the incubator. 

2.   Eating icecream while relaxing on a sunbed in the sunshine.

3.   Seeing newly sown seeds poking through the compost as bright green leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Books, baby and sunshine

While I was at book club yesterday the commune verge cutter came through the village.  Such a shame – all the lovely wild flowers are now no more.  I particularly miss the bluebells in amongst the grass, ragged robin, celandines, buttercups, dandelions and stitchwort.  It was the same when I lived in Cornwall when they cut slightly later in the year and chopped down all the foxgloves along our lane.  Have they no hearts these people?

We held the book club outside – I didn’t fancy sitting inside when it was so sunny, but after about 45 minutes the sun disappeared behind clouds and it became  distinctly chilly.  The book we were discussing was

 

 

this is a seriously long book at 612 pages and I had only managed to read up to page 350, so I spent a lot of the meeting with my fingers in my ears to avoid spoilers.  As far as I've read I don't feel it is the most exciting book I've read recently, but having invested my time for just over half the book I will continue with it to the end.  The consensus was that perhaps it lost something in the translation to English. 

 

This week I've also read a book my friend brought over with her "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce. 

 

 

June thought it was brilliant so perhaps I was expecting something extraordinary.  I enjoyed it - it was certainly an interesting story - but it didn't move me in the way it had her.   While she was here she read one of my favourite books "The Best a Man Can Get" by John O'Farrell.  She - like me before her - was laughing out loud while reading it. 

 

After our sort out on the field last week, here is a section where we've put wood which needs sawing up for kindling and stacking in the woodsheds. 

 

There's still loads of stuff on the left behind the galvanised sheet which needs to be sorted and shifted.  I advertised some old brown plastic bread crates - you can just see them at the end of the galvanised sheet - and someone came to collect them on Saturday to use them for supporting jumps for their horses. 

 

 

Some more of the inside stuff was collected too - portable TV, paperbacks, empty jam jars etc,  so that's about it until I sort out some more things.  I am being such a good girl! 

 

Saturday was a glorious weather day here.  Wall to wall sunshine and bright blue skies.  I was determined to lie out in it and did.   When the nurse came and took blood from me yesterday morning she asked me where I'd been on holiday as I looked so brown!  Sunday was lovely until the afternoon when it all fell apart, but I did get another whole morning in the sun listening to two Archers omnibus podcasts on my laptop and reading my books.  So lovely to smell sunoil on my skin again - it seems so long since the sun has been here.

 

Here's a photo of Andy and Flick's new baby, Lucas.  He is so beautiful, his skin is just perfect and he seems a really content little chap.

 

 

I forgot last time to post this photo of June outside a Tattoo parlour in Pleurtuit last week.  Did she or didn't she?

 

 

Well, no she didn't - thank goodness!

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Having a long awaited cuddle with Lucas.

2.   Finally getting into a swimmer and sunbathing all day.

3.   Holding the new baby chicks.