bonne annee

Each year we are invited to a couple of New Year's Eve dinners or parties, but since our children have been teenagers we have to decline.  WHY?!! I hear you ask, something contagious? a superstition? no, nothing so ethereal --- it's our barn!

Our barn is big, safe, far enough from the house to be independent yet close enough to keep an eye, and ......  it has seating and a dance floor!!  YAY!

So every year at least one of our four children organise a New Year party there.  We bring in heating, fancy lights, music,  food, drink.... You can see from the pictures that we leave it all pretty basic.  Experience has taught me that my ideas on decoration aren't quite the same as theirs, and in any case the lights will be so low that no one will notice!!

We already put a couple of our old sofas in the barn, and the former mangers have been transformed into teenage-party-proof seating.

The old wood burning stove is given its annual dusting off and woken up for the occasion, and we bring in some extra party heating too.

So at my french country home on New Year's Eve you will find a dinner for us with friends in the main house; a teenage party in the barn, and a younger and smaller teenage happening in the guest cottage.  Fun?  yes,  Mad?  yes, also, .... but the bit where I would like you to spare me a thought is the next morning, because while our dinner guests will go home at some point in the night, most of the youngsters will be staying here!!!  Obviously!  No fun at all otherwise!

How many baguettes do you think I should  order for breakfast for 30 youngsters?   I'm going with 20 baguettes and about 8 litres of hot chocolate and the same of orange juice, but if anyone knows better I'm interested to hear!

. 

Bonne année à vous tous!!  

Very Soon! - my first blog anniversary

It will soon be my blog's first birthday and I can't believe how fast, how full
and how enjoyable this past year of blogging has been.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH

My blog would be pointless without your visits. 

During the last week of January I shall be celebrating this birthday with a week of give aways. Hopefully several between the 22 and the 29 January.  Some are already worked out.

If you have an on-line shop, be it etsy or other, and you'd like to be the sponsor for one of my give aways I'd love to hear from you.  You know how these things work, the prizes don't have to be huge, but they must have appeal, and the sponsor  promise to ship to the winner of the draw for that day.  To thank you I'll write a lovely post about you, link back to your store and put you on my sponsor bar.

Mutual promotion is one of the most intelligent and enjoyable things about the blogging world, this is a chance to show off your products to a new audience and make somebody happy at the same time!

If you're interested just drop me an email here   I look forward to hearing from you!

ce mercredi je mange ... une buche de Noel

The traditional French dessert for this time of year is the Buche de Noel.  Served of course at Christmas, but also at New Year's Eve dinners such as we'll be having at the end of this week.

The beauty of this dessert is that it's rich without being heavy, and - most brilliantly - can be prepared ahead of time.

Behind the fancy French name, which only means Christmas log, there hides nothing more than a  chocolate flour-free cake, rolled with a chestnut and cream filling.

The ingredients I use are

FOR THE CAKE

9 eggs separated

225g / 1.13 cups sugar

75g / 0.375 cup cocoa powder

FOR THE FILLING

350g / 1.75 cups chestnut purée

2 spoons cream

FOR THE DECORATION

10fl oz cream

50g dark chocolate

First preheat your oven to 180 C and line a baking sheet with waxed or greaseproof paper.

Separate the eggs, and beat up the yolks with the sugar, until they pale slightly.

Add the cocoa powder to the egg and sugar.  Mix well.

Beat up the egg whites until stiff, add a large spoonful of egg white to the cocoa/egg mixture This will loosen up the mixture and make it possible to fold in the rest of the egg whites gently.

Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin and bake until firm and springy.

This takes about 25 minutes.

Sprinkle another piece of waxed paper with icing sugar or cocoa powder 

and turn the slightly cooled cake out upside down.

Gently peel the paper off the back of the cake and leave to cool.

Soften the chestnut purée in a bowl, then blend in the whipped cream.  Spread ths mix over the cooled cake, then using the paper roll the cake up.  At this stage I tuck the paper firmly in all around the cake and leave it to set for a while in the fridge.  Even overnight, no harm can come.

 When you're ready to decorate, then unwrap, cut a piece off each end of the 

roll and position to resemble cut branches on a log!! 

 Gently cover with whipped cream, and draw lines of melted
chocolate to look like lines on the bark. 

Carry to the table and prepare yourself for applause and gasps of amazement, 

this one is  guaranteed to impress!!

blow away the cobwebs

When I was little, my mother used to insist on hauling us down to the (freezing cold) seaside on the first day of the New Year.  "It's good to blow away the cobwebs" she'd  call above the fierce north wind "a fresh start for the year to come".....

Well, I'm not sure that my children would jump for joy if I suggested the same activity, but something of her attitude has stayed with me and this is definitely the moment in the year when I start feeling the need to sort out and put away.  Clear my desk, shelves, wardrobe and start the new year with good, if slightly unrealistic, intentions of order and tidiness.   After the clutter of opening Christmas presents and the house packed with guests, I long for lightness, pale colours and simple lines.

I won't be packing up Christmas for another week or so but in the meantime these pictures are doing me good!

 

all pictures thanks to Decorative Country Living

A lovely Christmas day

 Happy days, laughter, 
all our children under one roof,

three delicious nieces, 

a well behaved dog, 

good meals gobbled up, 

my favourite champagne, 

snow, christmas stockings,

  charades after lunch, 

children who say thank-you, 

roaring fires,

little girls on the piano

...........

 

What are the moments you hold on to?

Un très joyeux noël

 From the heart of Normandy I wish you all a  

très joyeux noël

Enjoy your family and friends, be kind to one another, be happy!

May the year 2011 bring us all joy, peace and good health.

Thank you for stopping by at my French Country Home,

your visits are my stocking fillers!

Stop press - Noel is back on track!

 

You are going to think I'm a total nutter, and for that I apologize  ... profusely.  Transport problems seem to have resolved themselves today and what was impossible yesterday evening has now re-become possible.

We are over the moon that my brother, sister-in-law and their three delicious girls will be here to open Christmas stockings, eat turkey and pull Christmas crackers with us.  We even have an unexpected addition to the household, as a friend has left us his dog to look after - another bone-shaped stocking needed there!

Thank you all a million times for your well wishes and kind words of commiseration.  Many of you seemed to think that a couple of glasses of wine or eggnog would have done me some good, and you may well be right! 

PS. The invitation still holds though - there's loads to eat here!!

Actually, I hate snow ....

This is the first time I have ever written a non optimistic-life-is-wonderful post on my blog, but this evening I am tired and disappointed.  Just because of a bit of snow. my brother and his family - who should have come to spend Christmas with us - cannot come and WE ARE NOT PLEASED.

Heathrow airport is A MESS

the tunnel between the UK and France is A MESS

the roads could be A MESS

We are not talking about a metre of snow here, 

but 20cm  or 8" max!!!  I mean, come one, some of you are 

coping with 30" of snow for months on end, but you don't 

cancel Christmas for goodness sake!!

So if you want to pop over from Sydney,  Brisbane, New York, Adelaide, Atlanta, California, Turkey, Texas, Estonia, Pakistan, Buenos Aires, Italy, Arizona, Sudan, Hong Kong or South Africa or one of the other places where
I have been read ...........

FEEL FREE

there'll be plenty to eat and drink!!

photos thanks to Google images

le shopping de noel

Roads were cleared of snow today and I was able to get out again and do some more of my - already very late - Christmas shopping.  I could have gone to Paris, but chose to go the slightly closer and smaller city of Rouen.  Good shops, great architecture, friendly people.

Bought some roses for the house then wished 

I had bought this stunning bowl of hellebore.

Longed to still be the right age and shape to wear this little 

beige outfit - going back with my daughter tomorrow .....

- I know, I know,  it's called dressing vicariously, but 

at least I'm brave enough to admit it!

Found a lovely new shop called Initiales where the sweetest 

lady took the time to gift wrap a cadeau I bought.  I love

the way they do this in France, makes everything look so special.

Where's your favourite place to do your holiday shopping?

something from nothing - decoration tutorial

The major quantities of snow we have here have caused problems - living in the bottom of a valley may be pretty, but in these icy conditions it has made it almost impossible to drive places and I STILL haven't got everything ready for Christmas H-E-L-P !!!

Today I rediscovered that necessity is the mother of invention.  I wanted to do a little more decorating before family arrives at the end of the week.   I couldn't get out to the shops to buy stuff so had to make do with what I found here.

Here without further ado is a (very) quick tutorial on some (very) easy door decorations.

First find a silver beech tree.  Cut a few of it's beautiful weeping branches and if necessary let them dry out.

If you have silver paint for this bit, it's ideal.  Being unable to get out to the shops etc etc, I made do with some white paint and some glitter.  I found it looked prettier if I used very little paint and left alot of the natural branch colour showing.  While the paint was still wet, my willing helper (thank you young man!)  scattered glitter all over the whole kitchen    the painted branches.

While all of this dried properly (and the person who shall remain nameless swept up!)  I grabbed a hammer and thumped a couple of nails into the top ledge of the door frame.  This only makes small holes and they will never be seen.  Now I simply draped the branches over the doorway, using the nails to keep everything in place.  Once the branches were set as I wanted them I attached a few tiny pearl and silver wired baubles, left overs from past years decorating!

Et voila!  Instant decoration for zero cost, and very little time.

I was so pleased with the effect that having done this door in the dining room, I went on and applied the same treatment to two doorways in the entrance hall.

Thank you so much for all the amazing comments on my pictures in the last post.
Several people used the word "magical", but the real magic for me comes from the
warmth and spontaneity of your wonderful contributions to my blog.
Merci beaucoup mes amis.

ma maison in the snow

Some of you have been kind enough to say you like my header picture of our home in the snow, and even to ask to see some more.  It's unusual to have so much snow here so I have been snapping away -  we're loving it.

The lights in our drive looks so much prettier when
they're almost covered in snow- even in the dark

gates to the potager

These two shots were taken in the garden 

of the (abandoned) house next door.

It breaks my heart that no one lives here so now and 

again I climb the garden wall and wander round