to keep or not to keep

You only have to browse a few lovely blogs or glossy magazines to know how deep rooted our attachment to objects can be.  We spend hours hunting out that particular tone of blue in a vase, the painting that will look just right over the fireplace, or the teacup that we're most comfortable using every morning.

But sometimes  these objects take on a different importance, they become something more than the materials used to make them.

Recently my youngest son decided, in a moment of uncharacteristic tidyness, to sort his room, and proceeded to eject on to the landing piles of things that he had grown out of.  I applauded his ability to take big decisions, but when I started to pack up the displaced objects, I found I had a problem.

Among the pile were a lot of books whose titles  hid more behind their words than just a story.  They held memories of rainy afternoons in front of the fire,  precious moments at the end of the day before going to sleep, progress made in leaps and bounds while learning to read.  Shared laughter over a funny poem, and shared disbelief at an outlandish tale.

So instead of sensibly finding new homes for this pile of paper, many books have been  lovingly put away , protected in tissue paper and heavy trunks.  It helps that we have a large barn to store stuff but even though I know why I did it, I'm still not convinced it was the right thing.

So, to keep or not to keep, to grow attached or to use and forget.

When do you decide to throw things out? 

photos 2 Dr Zeuss 3 Beatrix Potter

my giveaway winner

A HUGE THANK YOU

to everyone who took part in my first giveaway.  I was thrilled to see so many people and Patricia was thrilled about all the compliments paid to her handwork.  It's been a wonderful way to meet a lot of new faces, I've even become a follower to my first Ukrainian blog!

Thank you also for  the lovely comments and emails you wrote about my etsy shop. As you know this is also fairly knew to me, and thanks to your help, I've been able to understand more about what you like.   In particular I have changed my approach to shipping costs.  After a long chat to our village post office, I was able to improve the cost of posting out my little treasures.  Now, instead of bothering you with the details of how much shipping costs, I'm just putting up the items at an all inclusive price, delivered to your door!

So here, without more ado,  I am happy to announce that the winner of this pretty set is

Mara

from

If you don't know Mara's blog yet, you should pop over and have a look.  She is Italian, from Padova, and her blog is full of the happiness and lightness of spirit that the Italian girls seem to do so well.

Congratulations Mara, send me an email with your address and the little packet will be on  it's way!

un weekend chaud

We are promised another hot and sunny weekend  -  aaaaah!  -  and I am longing to light some of these

and one of these

and prepare some of this

accompanied by a dash of this

 and share with friends in a setting like this

Un très bon weekend à tout le monde!

photos 1, 2 cox and cox,  , 5 david duncan livingstone

silence for exams

At this time of year many of us have children who are revising hard for important exams. 

Most of us have been through this, some a longer time ago than others.  It's easy to forget how much pressure and hard work there is behind this important moment in a young person's life.  So much can hang on the results; further studies at a good university,  a longed for career.  

Here in France, a student taking the baccalaureat has over 10 subjects to revise in depth - hours and hours of preparation.

So be it in a huge exam room, or underneath a shady tree, be it for the baccalaureat, for A-levels, for end of course assessments, for university finals or even for a simple spelling test.  ......

let's support them in our hearts and minds.

polo at Deauvile

In a couple of months time we'll be driving to the Normandy coast now and again to watch some polo.  Every summer there is a delightful polo season in Deauville, the pitch is in the centre of the race course, so while we watch the horses charge up and down the polo ground, others are racing around us at high speed gallops.

Polo is one of those sports that you can appreciate just for the beauty of the accessories.  A fine horse, obviously,  the soft gleam of the leather saddle, the rider's boots and leg protections.  The long wooden mallet and often a fringed Argentinian saddle rug.

This year, however for the first time, I'll be watching in a slightly different frame of mind.  The eldest of my two darling daughters has discovered the joys of polo,.  Obviously she's not a real player yet but she would like to play as much as possible during her coming gap year!  Don't get me wrong, we're not millionaires with a string of polo ponies and a lorry load of gauchos to care for them.  Polo has gone democratic!!!  It's also increasingly open to women.  Woo Hoo!

For years I've watched my daughters jump in competitions, play horseball, hack out alone and with friends, but here we're talking about a whole new ball game!  (forgive the pun).  Polo is a rough, exciting, macho sport,  and the best opportunities for playing all seem to be on the other side of the world.  So while the spare polo ponies look patiently on, I  may not feel so calm inside. 

But despite my qualms, I still love the game.  It's an exciting sport, with it's glamorous side, it demands real ability as a rider and nerves of steel.  If  a sport becomes a passion and leads a young person to travel the world it's surely an all win situation!

photos  polo contact worldwide;

the French like to snack too!

   French cuisine has a reputation for being elaborate and sophisticated, but you know sometimes the simplest things are the best .  Here are two recipes that we seem to use a lot.  The first, a pissaladière  (very sorry about the name!) is a delicious savoury caramelised onion tart, I love to serve small squares of  this with an aperitif.  You can either make it with a puff pastry base or a thin bread pizza base, we prefer the latter.  Even my son, away at university, has found that this is a favourite with his friends!

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 yellow onions, chopped
• 2 teaspoons demerara sugar (raw sugar)
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed, or bread dough
• 20 anchovy fillets
• 20 black olives in oil, drained
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 425F degrees. Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the onions and demerara sugar and sauté, stirring frequently, until the onions become tender and start to turn golden. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, oregano and thyme. Stir the mixture. Cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are  very soft and golden brown.

Remove from the onions from the heat and set them aside while preparing the pastry or the bread dough.  

Roll out the  pastry  or bread dough into a rectangle or circle on a 12-inch by 18-inch baking sheet. Spread the pastry with the onion confit, leaving a tiny inch of dough uncovered around the edges of the pastry. Arrange the anchovy filets and olives on the pissaladière. Bake it for 15 to 25 minutes, until the base has puffed up, turned golden, and crisped.

Remove the pissaladière from the oven and sprinkle the olive oil and fresh thyme across the hot surface of the tart. Cut it into rectangles and serve very warm or at room temperature.

This pissaladière recipe makes 10 servings.

Then a tea time classic, des petits financiers, sweet light almond cakes, best when made individually, but the recipe can be made as a whole cake.

• 2 tablespoons (30 g) unsalted butter, melted, for buttering 21 financier tins
• 1 cup (140 g) finely ground almonds
• 1 2/3 cups (210 g) sugar
• 1/2 cup (70g) all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup (185 g) egg whites (5 to 6)
• 3/4 cup (6 ounces; 185 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 450°F(230°C).

With a pastry brush, use the 2 tablespoons melted butter to thoroughly butter the financier tins. Arrange them side by side, but not touching, on a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet with the buttered tins in the freezer to resolidify the butter and make the financiers easier to turn out.

In a large bowl, combine the almonds, sugar, flour, and salt. Mix to blend. Add the egg whites and mix until thoroughly blended. Add the 3/4 cup butter and mix until thoroughly blended. The mixture will be fairly thin and pourable.

Spoon the batter into the tins, filling them almost to the rim. Place the baking sheet in the centre of the oven. Bake until the financiers just being to rise, about 7 minutes. Reduce the heat to 400°F(205°C). Bake until the financiers are a light, delicate brown and begin to firm up, about another 7 minutes. Turn off the oven heat and let the financiers rest in the oven until firm, about another 7 minutes.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the financiers cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out.  The financiers may be stored in an airtight container for several days.

Bon appetit!

PS.  This post is linked to the June French Obsession Party

diner chez des amis

 A sunny weekend, lovely warm evening. 

Invitation to dinner in the valley.  

Close enough to cycle. 

Bunch of flowers from the garden  for our friends

Saw the sun set over a wheat field on the way 

Came back by a beautiful clair de lune.

MAGICAL!

PS.  I have to add that the first wheat picture, with the pretty sun circles on it, was Julie's clever reworking of a shot of my own.   As I have already mentioned - the girl has major talent!!

French village life

Living here in my tiny quiet village , I am a witness to a passing era.  On all sides of our house we have neighbours 'd'un certain age' who have seen good times and bad and have lived simple healthy lives.

Unwittingly, in their everyday life, they effortlessly create daily vignettes that glossy magazines would be proud to display.

When these dear souls leave their homes, for whatever reason, there are some essential elements of French rural life that will disappear forever.

This generation finds it normal to spend hours in their potager, not because it's fashionable, or healthy but because that is where their vegetables come from.  Our closest neighbours harvest 1000 kilos of potatoes each year - just for the two of them.

They keep rabbits in hutches, not because their grandchildren want to come and cuddle them, but because rabbit is flavoursome and lean meat.

The sound of a rooster crowing in the morning is familiar, and reminds us that the best eggs come from chickens who wander around freely all day, and lay their eggs where they feel safe.

Bees are kept to pollinate the fruit trees, and the village bee keeper is allowed into neighbours gardens to keep an eye on his hives.

If so much fruit is produced, it's not only to eat raw, to put into tarts and jams.  A lot is also put aside for the bouilleur de cru, who goes from house to house in the winter, a mobile distillery who'll turn the excess fruit into delicious eau de vie, to be packed away with care in the cave a vin.

I sometimes  wonder who, in twenty years time, will still think it's worthwhile to do all this.  There will be some of course, but I don't think there'll ever be another generation who'll achieve the same effect in such a nonchalant manner.

This post is linked to the June French Obsession Party

my first giveaway and a guest to my shop

I have a lovely French friend , she lives near by in a beautifully decorated house, with her sweet dog, her charming daughters and delicious husband.  Her name is Patricia and she is very clever with her hands..

She and I sometime ride together, and last fall, as we rode the horses around the valley she patiently listened to me saying how I wanted to do a blog but couldn't work out how to use blogger?!.....  A few weeks later  she kindly let me bend her ear about looking for some pretty hand made bits for my etsy shop but not having the time to make them....... and then a little while ago she invited me to a delicious lunch in her pretty garden and announced that she would like to make a few things for me.  YES!

And this, my dear blogger friends, is how I come round to my first giveaway.  Just for the fun of it.   It's not my birthday, it's not my blog's birthday, I'm not celebrating my 400th follower or my 500th post.  It's just because I'm happy and want to share something special with you, a group of friends,  some silent,  some chatty, whose company I enjoy every day!

If you go and have a look at  my etsy shop  you'll see that I've been busy trawling the brocantes of Normandy for you, and,   you'll also see the first selection of Patricia's lovely hand made items.  

Here for the giveaway is a lovely set, typical of her work.  This sweet zipped pochette, pretty drawstring bag and matching lavender sachet were all hand made by Patricia using extra soft vintage French linen.

What I admire in Patricia's work, beside her sense of style,  is the quality of the finishings and the detail.  The drawstring pochette has a hand stitched patch on the front, detailed with a little number label and a matching  button.   The zipped pouch is fully lined and the smaller sachet filled with wonderful smelling French lavender - from her garden no doubt.

You could use this bag and pouch for underwear, make up, toiletries.  Pack them when you're invited away for a weekend and slip the matching lavender cushion into your bag to keep everything sweet smelling.   Use them in your wardrobe or drawer to protect precious clothing, or just to keep your sports socks out of sight!

So here we go, open to everyone, wherever you are in the world, 
 entries open until 30 May at midnight, heure de Paris!
I'll be adding new bits to the etsy shop all through the week.

That gives me the time to work out how to use a random counter!

How to Enter

.

 Leave a comment on this post

and if you'd like an additional entry - go on don't be shy, I'd like to give you more!

  Tell me you're a follower, join up now if needs be

for entry number three

Grab a button from the top right of my blog, post it on your blog and leave another comment to let me know

and last of all, for entry number four

 Check out my etsy shop and tell me what you like best!

BONNE CHANCE A TOUT LE MONDE!

staying in our valley - chateau d'emalleville

If one day you greet me with the good news that you want to come visit,  I may well suggest - if we're all full here - that you stay with our friends Frédérique and Arnaud.  This young dynamic couple bought the Château d'Emalleville a few years back and have made it into a tasteful, welcoming and peaceful place to stay.

.

Don't be intimidated by the imposing façade, this château is family sized, and is indeed a family home.  Fred and Arnaud live here with their two lovely children,  two naughty Labradors and too many horses for me to count.

The gardens are beautifully maintained, there's  a heated swimming pool and a hard tennis court.

When you reserve you'll be able to choose between a room in the 'communs'

the gardeners cottage by the pool,

or a room in the château itself.

Here, as you descend the stunning staircase after a sound night's rest,

you'll be reassured to notice that you have spent the sleeping hours guarded by lions,

The garden or 'parc' as we call it here,  is peaceful and Arnaud will encourage you to wander around, admiring the wide variety of mature trees.  If you ask nicely he may even show you the drawing he has of the original garden plan, laid out several hundred years ago.

I adore this old greenhouse, complete with underground heating!  Arnaud has had it lovingly restored to it's original beauty.

Amazingly, besides raising a family and maintaining a great big château, our friends still find time for hobbies.

Fred is a keen horsewoman, and recently started breeding ponies for competition.  She takes pride in her beautiful paddocks, and rarely misses the morning feed and check on every horse.

Arnaud's passion is for old cars.   He often welcomes groups of vintage Porsche or Jaguars, touring normandy on a weekend rally.

So while you're staying here I'll jump in my car and pop over to see you, maybe we'll have time to go out for lunch together.  I'm looking forward to it, just say the word!