It's almost the end of my first year in France. What a fantastic year it has been and what excitement I have for the future. The summer was endlessly hot and sunny. Autumn was a blast of gold, yellow, rust, reds, browns and greens. The Pic d'Annie which I see from my windows has had its first dusting of snow, and the skiing season starts soon which a little later than usual because of the warm weather and soft winds from north Africa that we have been enjoying.
The house is almost completely decorated and I have discovered the wonder of Emmaus. This is a disposal and purchase point of anything from mobile homes to plastic window boxes - items donated to help the homeless. The aim is to provide on the spot training for homeless people who mend and renovate the items which are then on sale at very low prices for those without much money. And, after receiving all my tax claims this year, that is definitely moi. It's here that I have found carpets, cupboards and chairs as well as old doorknobs and hinges. I love going to Emmaus.
So keeping the blog is hard. I also worry about the pretentiousness of it and its self indulgence. Basically I have got a whole life to get on with so regular reports on life in France feels like a bit of a sad thing for me. I have so much to do, so much to enjoy and my first Christmas will be wonderful because I have invitations to music events, dinners, aperos, dancing - and best of all the family are coming. I will also invite all my immediate neighbours for aperos to celebrate my first year in France and to thank them for their help.
Joyeaux noel and bonne annee.
Labels: Peppers at Puente de la Reina Navarra
Roger
Today was the funeral of my next door neighbour Roger. For three years, on and off, I have watched him cycle 50 yards past my house, dressed in his blue denim jacket and field worker's trousers en route to his chickens kept at the very edge of my land. I have listened to him talking to the chicks, strimming their enclosure to remove unnecessary weeds, tending the bamboo that screen their pen from my house twice daily and routinely. The hens and cockerel enrich my life with their chuckles and dawn choruses.
Roger has always worked on the land. A small wirey man, bent over from fused discs. He died aged just 70 after suffering numerous cancers and tumors. Three days before he died I went with Margot his wife to see him in a hospice - he smiled, pulled his thin frame upwards, hugged me and gave me a kiss on each cheek. He asked me if I was dealing with my tomatoes as he had shown me, and if was I starting to think about pruning the vine.
More than 200 people came to his funeral. The choir of Sauveterre sang. The 85 years old priest dribbled. His daughter spoke of her father and cried. He was honoured by two men carrying flags for those who had fought as young men in the Algerian war. His coffin was covered with the Tricoleur in honour of those who have fought for their country. He was buried in the 'communal grave' - he was a man who lived his life modestly off the land. He was a quiet, deeply proud, reserved man who loved his chickens and bees in his last years.
His second grandchild will be born some time in the next four weeks and his name will be Florian.
Pointy hats - a winner
When those 24 green pine tree outfits and nightmare- to-make pointy hats came on stage, I nearly burst into song. The scene had nothing to do with the main plot of the 2009 Sauveterre Spectacle, but then, lots of bits don’t. Random green frogs; people sitting on chairs saying ‘bonjour’ to each other; a giant Remington typewriter are all part of the delight that is the artistic two-night celebration of all things Sauveterre de Bearn over its many decades.
For one year the plot is hatched; six months out the rehearsals start and four months out the costumes are made. In a tumbly building, down a side street of the walled town, up rickety oak stairs lies a fantasy world of musketeers, medieval maidens, masks, ruffs, frills, pins, cottons and two sewing machines. Under the auspices of the Atelier Queen – Gaby – everything is labelled with precision, every coat hanger hangs in the right order of the clothes group. Together the items encapsulate years of dedication and hard work.
That’s where the pointy hats were made and these left me with bleeding fingers and major worry, because even though it is an amateur performance, nothing less than perfection is accepted in the Atelier. As I sat sewing I would learn about births, deaths, liaisons, diets, how to cook the best pipperade, when to put leeks into the ground and who makes the best tuilles d’amandes.
Imagine my pride when I got a mention at the end of each performance for my efforts in the Atelier. Can’t wait now for 2011 and I don’t care how many pointy hats have to be made then, I’m in.
The heady fields of Oraas
A recent visit from a work colleague had her muse that she feared I would get bored here in rural France. We worked together during heady days of marketing, public relations, communications and travelled across the world so doing. Going to the opening of a fridge or envelope was what we did, and lots of fun was had - and glamorous it most certainly was. But I thought it was pointless when I did it and to substitute it finally for this lifestyle was a long time coming.
There is no end to the opportunities presented in this region. World class concerts in wonderous surroundings; festivals; great scenery; lunches with friends beneath shady trees; volunteering, sewing, fetching neighbours children from schools; the vegetable patch; starry starry black skies and full moons to die for. Then there is fantastic walking.
Take today for example.
I woke deciding I needed more exercise. So popped on the boots, grabbed a bottle of water, picked up a detailed map of the area and set off. The first path through the trees had me stumped after a while because the road descended into a small path when, at the bottom of a hill, the pathway was flooded. Must have been irrigation water because there hasn't been any water for two months. I was just about to take off my boots and socks when, from out of literally nowhere that I could see, up came a car. In it was Jean Jacques my nearby farmer who asked me if I was lost. Absolutely not, I retorted, here's my map and the path. He informed me that none of those paths existed any more because local farmers like him had bought them and planted maize everywhere. Janet Street-Porter would not have accepted that. But I did, so I turned back and went a different way.
Thrilled at the joy of the sunshine, freedom and lush lush vegetation which benefits from the rains peculiar to the Pyrenees, I smelt the smell of herbs. Strange, I thought, strange indeed.
I turned the corner on the barely pebbled path and came across three huge fields of 'herbs'. Indeedy. And we're not talking lavendar, thyme or any of that sort of stuff.
Wow - how about that! So I texted my friend who is just about to come out to see me and said that on the second night of his visit, when there is a full moon, we have a 2 am rendezvous. Armed with my sissors and a small bag for personal use only, we're going herb picking.
Now, where is the lack of opportunity in that?
The picture above is my lucky find in the fields of Oraas.
Lack of blog has been because I’ve been too busy living life. Yey.
Since the last post I have volunteered at the Laas Festival for four days – a superb event in the grounds of Chateau Laas. Every year the mayor, and village, celebrate Gaellic music and this year the focus was on the Pitlochry Pipe Band. So apart from cleaning the site wearing my rubber Marigolds (and French people don’t leave litter so that was easy); collecting entry tickets; helping to prevent drunken locals from falling down the hillside, I minded 17 Scots from Pitlochry area. A four day event and I had a great time. Can’t wait for next year.
Then I got stuck in to making costumes for the Sauveterre Spectacle. This is a two night event held every two years in the streets of Sauveterre. As a great community amateur event it involves a cast of more than 180, many changes of costumes, and includes 24 people dressed as pine trees. That meant sort of circular green capes, circular hooped green skirts and for some bizarre reason – green pointy hats. Those green pointy hats were hell to make and luckily my task was cut short with a visit to Glastonbury.
I spent six nights at Glastonbury and totally fell in love with White Lies – moody or what. Lady gaga was fab and Roots Manuver and Dizee Rascall were my other favourites. Of course there was Blur, Bruce, Tom, Tony and other big star names. Only sad thing was that I only took two pairs of socks which had to be worn under wellies at all times. So after six days and no shower, those socks were even hating each other.
So I will try and catch up a bit now. Decorating is out because of the heat; terrace is almost finished so I attach picture of me sitting on the almost finished empty terrace. Cows are enjoying the field and herons continue down to the river.
All in all, it’s a more than good life.
More on the Sauveterre Spectacle later – and life in the Atelier
Eating in France is a tricky thing to get to grips with when you’re used to spaghetti bolognese, pasta parcels served as a main course, salads of limp tasteless lettuce and beetroot. These you won’t find in France in any respectable household and definitely not in any bistro.
The other thing is that, to me, French women seem so thin and the older they get, the more they take care of their thinness. They also devote serious time to hiding wrinkles behind immaculately pancaked faces, white silk neck scarves and eye-distracting jewellery.
How strange it was then that I recently went to two dinners in french households to consume a winter-only Raclette and a Tarteflette. Back in the sixties in England fondues were the big thing. So sophisticated, we thought, balancing bits of meat onto forks and thrusting them into boiling oil and dipping the cooked meat into noxious coloured sauces. The alternative version was thick cheese melted with sparkling wine and kept liquid over the little stove while bits of crusty bread were dipped into the mix. Burnt mouths invariably ensued and a feeling of sickness from cheese overload.
Taking Raclette first, we sat round the table looking at a sort of double hotplate with grill filaments in between. The tools for each person consisted of a little trowel, a tiny wooden spatular and a plate of thinly sliced raclette cheese. There was a bowl of freshly boiled waxy potatoes and little dishes of mini gherkins for general use.
The machine was plugged in, the grill heated up and a guest tripped over the wire bringing the whole thing crashing to the tiled floor. The equipment was obviously made to survive such attacks because when plugged in again, the grill came on to rapturous applause. The plan is to put a slice of cheese onto your trowel and slide it under the grill. Then you put some boiled potatoes on your plate and when the cheese is a running cholesterol trap, you pour it over the potatoes. Gherkins are essential, I was informed, to prevent digestive problems from the richness of the fayre.
As for Tarteflette – well that’s pre-prepared and delivered to the table in a large dish and you spoon it onto your plate. It is made up of layers of waxy potatoes, chunks of bacon (lardons), a full cream sauce and a whole sliced reblochon cheese on top which, during oven cooking, melts down into the potatoes while leaving a crusty topping. Again, vinegar is needed for digestive purposes, so there’s a bowl of lettuce with vinegar/oil dressing.
Reblochon is a mountain cheese originally from the Alps. In the 16th century milk production was taxed so the morning milk paid the taxes and the evening milk was used by the farmers. This evening milk was rich and creamy and often turned into reblochon, a delicate cheese with a pale yellow rind which. Today it can be bought in supermarkets.
Raclette cheese comes from the French and Swiss Alps and is made according to ancestral methods. It’s a semi-hard cheese made from unpasturised cow’s milk with a distinctive aromatic flavour. Its creamy texture with scattered holes has an ideal fat and moisture ratio that prevents the cheese from separating when melted under the grill.
My surprise then is how these winter dishes are popular in France where women and FAC educated people appear to me to be seriously style conscious. A further surprise is that the communal diving in, melting and scoffing extra thick food is a long way from the formal, and more usual, apero, entrée, main of meat or fish, green salad, cheese, dessert formula which is peppered with witty chat and lasts about three hours.
I don’t know which I prefer, I think it’s the latter only because the immense overload of cheese and potato is not really suitable for the retired. Perhaps if I had 40 cows to milk twice daily, or a barn to build, I would be grateful of such comfort and slow energy release food.
But the real secret is that while I might have my raclette with ten trowels and an equal number of potatoes, I notice my french female friends had two trowel loads and made it last two hours. While I had a tarteflette of three helpings of creamy bacon cheesy sauced potatoes, my friends had a small dessert spoon and chatted enthusiastically about which market sells the best cheese in between taking minute sips from a half-filled glass of white wine.
I’ve a lot to learn about food restraint in France.
Global economic crisis - the media obviously think we just can't hear enough about it. The hurricane in France and unprecedented amounts of snow in England have given respite to the pontificating over global economy. Peter Mandelson, also bored of it all, has sneered and told us all to stop snivelling.
Watching the news on France 2 last night, I was whisked from the studio to what was, for me, to be a suprise visit to the Elysee. The bland TV news room was replaced by the opulence of a palatial room garnished with heavy brocade curtains and more chandeliers than the Trotter brothers could ever destroy in an afternoon.
And there, next to the French Flag, slim, dapper, black suit, narrow black tie and white shirt sat the President de la Republique, his exquisitely manicured hands positioned shoulder width apart and palms down on a TV set table. He was going to tell us about his view on the economic crisis, what it meant to France and what the global fuck up meant to the French 'peuple'. Opposite Le President, sat two journalists, famous anchor people, whose reverence and perfect demeanour fitted the occasion and the bloke who owns majority shares in French TV.
Off we went for 95 minutes during which Monsieur Le President took his hands off the table, waved them around a lot, gesticulated palm up to enforce a point and smiled like your best friend when appropriate. Gordon Brown acts like a mole who can't find which pile of shit in the field is his - with charisma to match. Berlusconi has been in mid-life crisis for the past 15 years and Putin always looks dodgy, it's in his lying eyes. But Sarkosy was contained, generous to 'mes citoyens', smiling, always smiling, energetic, unconfrontational and above all, delightfully French. Us the viewers marveled at his style and fancifully reminded ourselves that, lucky bloke, he goes home at night to shag Carla.
He stated with a bounce of optimism that the economic crisis was 'brutal'. He vowed he wouldn't chuck loads of public money at the private sector like the Brits and Yanks. Nor would he reduce VAT as they did in the UK because he observed "the problem is in the 'ead". Even with more disposible income people in the UK weren't spending and he's right, I'm sticking my surplus into a cash free ISA with Alliance and Leicester thank you very much.
He was riveting and the typically shallow political statements were cushioned by the sparkling delivery. "Do you know" proffered the President de la Republique, that "TVR (VAT) on dark chocolate is 5.5% in France as compared with 19.5% on milk chocolate". Lots of TVA anomalies between these two figures and he promised to do something about that. But you were left with the clear message - well it's up to you really, waste money if you want, but dark chocolate would be my choice.
He rejected the mildly posed notion from the reverential journalist that he was as bossy as Napoleon. Looking as happy as a sand boy on a sunny day, Monsieur Le President reminded us that he didn't pass the buck like Chirac, he was a man that accepted his responsibilities as head of state. If his ministers screwed up, he would take the blame willingly.
He beamed, made a joke, rested his hands palms down, shoulder width apart, back onto the table and smiled encouragingly as we all wondered what the solution to the global economic melt down was going to be exactly.
When I went to the supermarket today - I bought a bar of 70% cocoa chocolate - I know I'm going to to my bit to keep optimistic.
