There's Crème Brûlèe and then there's Terre Brûlèe

I am not sure where August has gone. As the month ends today, I realized that I have not been writing as much as I should have. So to catch you up I am spending Wednesday morning getting my final thoughts down on paper. The very hot weather has past and and we are enjoying the pleasant weather of late August.

Steve and the neigbour.

We have been passing the days of August by reading, hiking (walking), gardening (my lettuce is ready for its first salad tonight) and trying to improve our French. The one thing that you need to keep up with. A few days ago, I was listening to a French podcast on ordering food and heard you might get your food burnt (brûlèe). Then the next day we were talking to our neighbour about the heat (Il fait très chaud), and he pointed to our Terre Brûlèe, the burnt earth of our back lawn. It took me a minute to put the two pieces together, but finally understood something our neighbour said. It will take a lot of time listening and being totally immersed in French to continue to improve. The local radio station is a good place to start with mostly French music and talk, with the odd accordion musical hour thrown in just for un peu de French flair. Later on that Sunday, we were chatting with our younger neighbour, Andre. He has almost no English, but we were able to talk about the village, how long he has lived here, a bit about where he works, and he lent us two books about Bellac and the area (in french of course).

Sandy and Steve at the station

We entertained our first guest of the summer during my last weekend here in Bellac. Sandy, a teacher from school arrived with great drama on Friday evening. We had heard via e-mail that she would arrive on the 16:47 train from Limoges. We patiently waited on the platform as the train arrived. Several people alighted but no Sandy. Steve tried to run up and down the train trying to see if she was still on the train, even the conductor quickly scanned his passengers, but no Sandy to be found. We wandered up into town to find a "hot spot" to see if she had e-mailed us with any changes to her plan, but no contact. We walked back to the station to wait for the next train just to see if she had missed the connection in Limoges. There she was standing inside behind the sliding glass doors, which was odd because there had been no further trains since we had left to seek a wifi signal. She was locked in because the station closed at 17:20. Sandy finally was able to get the agent to come and release her. The story went that her train from Paris was running late and she missed the connection. A good looking guy she met on the train directed her to the ticket office and the agent there wrote her a coupon for a cab ride to the Bellac station. We are sure there was some flicking of blond hair and a few smiles that got Sandy the free ride instead of being told to wait for the next train.

With Sandy here, we managed to get out and about to Le Dorat

Sandy and Vern in Le Dorat

and Montmorillon, but the heat slowed us down to a crawl.  Sunday morning started out cool and cloudy with some thunder rumbling in the distance but the sun did manage to break through and return us to almost as high temperatures on Saturday. Even our normally cool house was absorbing the heat through the thick walls (at least 24"), but at least it is a dry heat. Sunday was a quick tour of some neighbouring villages and then a vide-grenier. It was small, but picturesque and the tables of tat were around the small lake in the town. Sandy found a set of Limoges espresso cups that had been designed for Air France to take home for a souvenir. We got a set of cushions from a pile of gratuit furniture on the road side. A quick wash of the covers and presto a new set of cushions.

Monday marked the beginning of the end for my summer here in France. It was a day to wander the village and show Sandy the sights. We stopped by the train station for her to pick up her ticket for Paris the next day. I picked up my return ticket to Paris for Saturday. In the mean time, with cooler weather, Sandy saw our village, everything from the 12 century church, the marie, and even the cemetery. The day ended with a dinner in our local pub. It was such a change from the heat wave, as we needed sweaters as we sat out to enjoy our dinner. The evening ended with a walk around the park and a feeding of Steve's many goats.

The rock garden

The rock garden

With less than a week to go before it is back to school, it is time to reflect upon our first summer in France in our new maison. A lot has been done, and still with a few projects in the works. We did get the attic to the point that it can be comfortable and welcome guests. The back yard is inviting and looks good with the potted plants we bought this summer. The deck will need some work in the furture, but it has a summer or two left in it. The pelouse is a mixture of weeds, clover, moss and a little grass. Next summer I will try to add some more grass seed and some weed and feed to make it a bit more pleasant to walk across. In the vegetable garden, the lettuce is more than ready for harvest, and our first home made salad was enjoyed last night. There are still no budding cumcumbers in sight.  Pinch out the growing tip when the plants have developed seven leaves. The developing sideshoots can be left to trail over the ground or trained up stout netting. Pinch out the tips of flowerless sideshoots after seven leaves. Reading the above just today on a gardening web site may be why we still haven't seen the fruits of my labour. Next year we will pick something a little simpler like carrots. With Steve here for the month of September, he still might be able to use our homegrown cucumbers to dip in his tzatziki, we can only hope.

The first salad with my lettuce.

In my final days, I still have the guide to the house to finish writing. This will be for any friends who may visit the house when we are not here. It is amazing how many little things are needed to be noted in an old French house. Not all of them are due to age; the locking of the doors, turning on the water, using the washing machine and even the toilets need just a little translation but that is what living in a different country is all about. And that is what living in France is all about. It is a different world and will be hard to leave come Saturday. I will start counting the days until March when we return for a quick check in and then again next summer. Can't wait!

La Maison 'Tuileries'

Wish I painted this but...

Steve poolside :-)

Chateau Drouilles nearest chateau to Bellac.

Dog Days of Summer... what ever they are.....

As I write this post we are enjoying the Dog Days Of Summer. In writing this, I wondered what the dog days were, so below is a link to National Geographic's explanation of this term. National Geographic's explanation. The grenier is all but finished, we even spent 2 nights making sure all was comfy and spider free :-} and now we are just waiting on the lettuce (which is doing very well) and the cucumbers dans la jardin. Nothing else is really in the pipeline. We have just bought a reading chair from the local second hand store and a night stand from a local antique store to complete the grenier. Steve did discover a beautiful old beam down in my garden shed, and struggled to find a use for it, but it still lies in the hallway awaiting a second life. We have tweaked the kitchen, by replacing some shelving that the previous owners took away leaving only the holes, with some utensil/baskets etc. 

We have heard lots about the Olympics that got started last weekend and have seen the odd highlight on the BBC. We can not see anything of the Canadian coverage, as it is not available outside of Canada due to the broadcasting rights. So we cheer for Team GB (Great Britain). I did discover the app Francetv Sport, so we do get some French highlights of the games. Well we try to avoid it all due to the drug scandals, the other controversies that has surrounded the games and it has sports that only get watched once every four years, which is too often for some of them. We caught some of the men's synchronized diving from the 10 metre platform. Can't wait until 2020 to see it again. If I can stay up tonight, I will try to watch Canada vs Germany in Women's football. 

The weather has turned hot again, and we seek relief in the back garden with Kir Royale. Several weeks ago I attempted to order a Kir as an aperitif at a local restaurant. The waiter asked questions that I didn't understand, so I switched to a beer. A Kir, which we have since learnt, is a popular French cocktail made with a measure of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped up with white wine. It sounds sickly sweet, but really isn't especially with a dry wine.  Since that uncomfortable stumble with the language we have found crème de cassis in our local grocery store and we make our own. There is also the Kir Royale made with champagne instead of the white wine. Well we have a supply of sparkling wine, so we make our own version of Kir Royale. A nice way to celebrate 4:00 (16:00) or any time actually.  

Confolens

We rented the car again for two days last week. This allowed us to stock up on the big provisions as well as to discover more interesting villages and locations.

This trip took us to the shopping centre in Limoges to pick up a few essentials such as some shelving/storage for the kitchen, a radio, and what ever we saw that we didn't know that we really needed. The trip home took us past Lac Saint Paradoux for a dip in the lake and a pique-nique. It is great that we have a beautiful swimming lake only about 30 minutes from the house. Saturday took us through the backroads to Confolens. They were in the middle of their festival and we were lucky to discover a parking space. We wondered along the market, across the bridges and through the church and antique stores. We picked a tent set up for the festival for our lunch. On the way there we had passed through many picturesque villages and even more on the way home. We do have to pace ourselves as you can overdose on the historic antiquities of the country. It is still hard to get used to villages that seem lifeless on a Saturday afternoon. We are so lucky our village/town has the appearance of life even on a hot summer afternoon.

Lac Saint Paradoux

We are now back to frequenting our favourite bolangerie, as it has reopened after their vacation, congés. Our second choice is now away on their congés. We have just had the August long weekend here in France, celebrating the assumption of Mary into heaven. Saturday night we attended the evening market celebrating the local producers. The bandstand had accordion music, the bar was open, and there was a barbecue. We enjoyed the music and a beer or two as we had already planned a meal for the night. Sunday, we splurged and enjoyed an evening of beers and burgers at our pub just down the hill. They had an acoustic trio

playing contemporary music such as Ed Sheeran. The lamb burger and Steve's pork burger were as great as we remember from last summer, loved the fries. 

With a new week, I started some planned exercise. I now do power walks each morning, or at least the last two mornings. Up and down our hill on our side of the river twice. It is almost a 4 km walk in just over 30 minutes. It's a start anyways. It will go along with our other walks to the village for groceries or other errands. Tuesday saw the Tour de Limousin pass through Bellac. This was our second bicycle race this summer. Even though not as famous as the Tour de France, this year's was the 49th edition of the race. Bike racing is much more a cultural thing here in France. People don't seem to mind to be seen in public in their bike racing tights. I guess much like the bathing suits. It still was quite a rush to have the bikes and the accompanying cars racing right past you down the narrow streets.

It is hard to believe that we are now in the middle of August, and I have begun to have my teacher/back to school dreams. With only 3 weeks before I will be back to work, I will have to work to complete my summer bucket list. It shouldn't be hard, but the becoming fluent in French I think will take a bit more work. I am checking my school email for the first time today since mid July. Boy do I get a lot of junk email. I am even checking my hotel reservation and train schedule for my return to Paris in early September. But that is in the future, and as I've been trying to do this summer, is to live for the moment, and that includes finishing my second Kir Royale and making sure I am sober enough to barbecue the sausages for dinner tonight, but it is a low priority......

Chez nous, just one of many days...

After returning home from holidays, we still had the car for two more days. We used Saturday as a shopping day and headed to the next largest town, St. Junien, only about 20 minutes away. It has several big box stores as we needed a few more little things for the house. Here we got some cushions for the kitchen chairs, another cushion for the couch upstairs, another smoke detector, beer glasses, (I didn't realize how difficult it would be to find a nice set), and a potato peeler just to name a few. These, along with large items from the grocery store such as boxes of wine and cases of beer filled the car nicely.

Vern in Pontarion

On Sunday we took the traditional Sunday drive past a few more villages to the north east of us. All same/same/but different. We happened across the village of Pontarion which was having a Vide Grenier (Empty the Attic) event. The streets were lined with stalls and tables selling everything from used toys to antique military weapons. A few offers were made but none accepted so we left town with our fill of frites. A great deal at only €2.

Now that holidays are over for a while, it is back to the work of La Maison. All is ready for any quests that might arrive this summer, and I have a feeling next summer might be quite busy here in Bellac. The two ongoing projects are le grenier, (the attic) and le jardin. In the attic the painting of most of the ceiling is complete, and now just the stairs remain, with a peut être (maybe) on the railing posts. It still needs a couple of chairs and maybe a small table, but it will make a great large second bedroom.

Rubarb and geraniums

The back garden is looking OK. Its only been a month and the bedding plants are doing well, with the geraniums just blooming now. The hydrangea we got discounted from the plant store because of its run in with a few escargots is doing better, but will probably need to be transferred out of its pot before the winter. There are signs of new buds and all seems positive. In the actual garden the cucumbers are doing very well, and even the lettuce is coming along slowly. It all is a learning process.  J'apprends comment jardiner as we go along. There will always be next year. I am attacking the weeds in the "lawn" in a very military way. Sector A is almost vide of weeds now, and as August continues, the other sectors will be attacked. I am trying to do it all by hand, but deadly force might be needed as the weeds out number any other plant life in the garden. And thanks to our gardening neigbours up the street, I have started my rock garden and even an herb garden with the addition of a romarin (rosemary) plant. Linda's grows like a shrub in her yard, so I am hopping for the same results. Linda also suggested to cut the peonies back for next year. I did the one down by my man cave (the garden shed), and have left the upper peony as it is the only green plant along the fence. I will trim it back before I go home.

Laundry day.

It is amazing how a few loads of laundry, some weeding, a bit of writing, my French lesson and some cleaning can fill a whole day. Only on special days do we enjoy an afternoon apéritif before 17:00. That usually results in the need for a  une sieste, especially if we are drinking vins mousseux. Our dinners have been getting later and later as we slowly adapt to the French style. It also helps fill the evenings when you don't eat until 19:30. Entertainment here is via the internet. We have all the British tv channels and Netflix for our viewing pleasures, and a small library of books and ebooks for our literary pursuits. We have become fans of the BBC world service radio in the mornings to catch us up on all the happenings of the world.

A cold beer just waiting for me.

I have been here now for just over 4 weeks and we have had no measurable amount of rain. We did get a bit wet for a few minutes on one walk home from the grocery store, and then it sprinkled on two other occasions, but over all the weather has been perfect, not too hot. We did have a few days in the high 30's, and a few more are forecast again soon, but we will take shelter in the town pool to keep our cool and remember that the fridge is full of all sorts of cold beverages. Back in March we stumbled onto Pelforth brune, a nice dark beer. Well here in the heat of August, our tastes have changed back to the traditional 1664. A nice refreshing lager on a hot summer day. The darker beers will wait till the cooler temperatures return.

Well August continues and the weather has taken a slight detour today, Thursday. It got cool overnight, and the blanket needed to be pulled up. This morning it is cloudy, cool and trying to rain. We may even have to get one of the puzzles out. Steve will be up in the attic finishing the second coat of paint on the attic stairs.

Morning drizzle

Our emergency pool

Stairs to the grenier

...Toulouse to Carcassonne...

The second part of our outing was to Toulouse and then on to Carcassonne. Toulouse is France's 4th largest city while Carcassonne dates back to the sixth century. We had programmed out GPS to stay off the toll highways, so we spent the morning driving along smaller country roads winding through hills, valleys and finally sunflower fields. We rolled into Toulouse and found parking and set out on foot to see what we could in a short period of time. We luckily parked near the major square, which was hosting a market day, but the world only needs so many i-phone covers, batik dresses, cheap knock off suit cases and socks. We wandered out of the Place Capitole and towards Place Saint Georges, passing through the major shopping district of Toulouse. We saw the fountains

Vernon and the fountain in the Place Wilson

and carousel of Place Wilson, the parking lot of Place Victor Hugo and our short tour ended at the Basillque Saint Sernin. It was a very quick overview of the centre of the city leaving something to see if we are ever back this way.

A gate in the city wall.

Garden near the Place du Capitole

Sticking to the non-toll roads on our way out of Toulouse found us on a highway that paralleled the expressway, but we weren't in a hurry. Along with more sunflowers, we began to notice the vineyards along the way. As we got closer to Carcassonne, only about 50 kms away, it was like any modern French town. The highway was littered with big box stores, light industry and our cheap hotel. Not something I had in my mind of a town dating back to the Romans. We checked in to the Ibis Budget and were quite surprised with the hotel and the room. Even though the W/C was smaller than an airplane's, and the molded plastic toilet had no seat, the price, the air conditioning, breakfast, wifi, and free parking made up for any slight uncomfortableness.

The main entrance to La Citè.

As for most of this trip, we had done little background reading, so arriving at the La Citè later was a complete surprise. I had imagined the inner city was all part of the paid attraction but we found out the the inner city was the most alive area in town. It is full of restaurants, souvenir shops, squares, hotels, cookie and candy shops and exclusive hotels. It reminded me of Mont Saint Michel of northern France, without the ocean and the mountain. We had almost settled for a small restaurant down outside the walls, but were very glad we waited. Inside the walls we discovered the Taverne Du Château where we found our elusive holy grail, pizza. It was a great introduction to an incredible dinner, and for dessert we wondered around to give us a head start on tomorrow. Within the walled city is the Château and Ramparts, which are surrounded by their own walls, a fortress within a fortress. The main buildings of the keep date back to the 12th century. The ruling family, Trencavel, were getting too powerful, so the Pope called a crusade against them and the city became part of the royal domain in 1226. Until 1659 Carcassonne was used to protect the border between France and Aragon. It feel into disrepair as it was more of a military outpost. In the 19th century, archeologists rediscovered the city and began to restore the city to its medieval appearance today. 

Carcassonne's Ramparts with the lower city in the background

Along with touring the buidings of the inner Château, we were able to walk around the outer ramparts to the entire city. The views of the country side as well as the inner city were spectacular. To treat ourselves we had a great lunch at Saint Jean restaurant with croque Monsieurs and beer and more beer. We did notice that we were the only table drinking beer, but it seemed more refreshing than wine on a hot afternoon. Our table was ombragé (in the shade) and it was the perfect way to wind down. Some souvenir shopping and then the 20 minute walk back to our hotel for a well needed break. Our final dinner was back in La Cité where we tried the local specialty, cassoulet. It is like a chilli, with white beans, sausage, pork rind and duck. It was good, and the restaurant we ate had it on their 13 euro menu, so it was a small sample of the dish. The salad and dessert made up for any disappointment of having a bean stew for dinner. At least we got extra bread to soak up the delicious sauce it was served in.

Joan of Arc in Carcassonne lower city

The next morning, we headed into the newer part of the city to take in the splendour of the two churches in the centre of the city that the guides said we should see. The city was pleasant and well worth the short time we spent wandering the streets watching the city wake up. Being Friday, we thought it best to be be back on the road again, giving control to our GPS to take us on the fastest but non-toll highway home. It didn't take us long to realize that this would be an all day event, so we fought back control and headed to the toll expressway to get home before we threw the GPS out the window.

It was a great break and we were able to see just a little bit more of this amazing country. There is something new and exciting around each corner. A great place for a holiday home!

To view any of the photos in this blog, just click on the image to make it larger.

Carcassonne from the Ramparts

The lower town of Carcassone

Medieval Sculpture

The Château's Courtyard

The Gothic/Romanesque Church

The Main entrance to the Château.

Rampart Tower

Medieval Sculpture

The lower city

Steve by one of the towers

Artistic Window in Carcassonne

A Carcassonne square before the crowds

Sculpture of the Ramparts

The church inside the walls.

The moat

The moat

Vern at the castle gate.

Toulouse church

Carcassonne

Toulouse Main Square

The market in Tolouse

Screaming gargoyle!