Derniers Moments

Autumn still giving it a jolly good go. We wake up and it looks like this: and then by the afternoon it's up to 25C.

Lish and I did some lovely walks in the countryside round about.

I kept trying to go to the little goat farm where there was apparently yarn to be had! - but we never quite got going early enough in the day to avoid the 'closed from midday until 3' nonsense that is a part of the mainstream French lifestyle.

La sieste des vaches!

A very good boy doing a very good job.

Cows have bells, goats have bells, sheep have bells, and they each are a different tone! so you can hear what sort of animal it is, even before you see it!

I love road-side mailboxes. We have these a lot in country Australia. They are always picturesque.

A really well executed woodpile! Goals.

I dunno what this is, but if anyone's ever seen Over The Hedge,
it looks like one of the contraptions in that!

Lish having to respond to an important text message from home,
out in the middle of absolutely nowhere

A car repair business, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere ...

Where the cars seem to have been there for a very, very long time!!!

The entire area is filled with roads and roads like this. The speed limit is 80 km/h!

I couldn't get enough of sunlight through crocuses 💜

Lish cooked a few times this week! - and I sous-cheffed.
So much fun working with them.

This was a delightful tomato risotto, with roasted potimarron and yellow pear tomatoes. Sides of grilled chicken, and haloumi for the veggos.

Credit: The Mediterranean Dish: Tomato Risotto

The amazingly creative Chloé has a project - she wants a library at school, with the rider that all the books have to be written BY HER. She and Lish had some wonderful sessions working on plot lines.

Another walk - this one heads down our lane, then onto another side-lane, skirts the bottom perimteter of our property, curves around up to the top of the hill.

Fallen chestnuts look like a convention of hedgehogs!

Blue sky and bucolia, as far as the eye can see

We met some nice little donkeys

Fire hydrants have funny faces! And can be found in really unexpected areas.

At the end of our walk, we came back up through one of the fields at the bottom of the garden, and spotted this.

Lish and I went for afternoon-tea with a couple that visit this area from America, for a couple of months at a time. We explored the village where they are staying.

This sign made us giggle - what the heck did the chicken do???

(the word 'traiteur' actually means caterer)

the church in Monein

David and Ashley - a lovely couple!

A simple dish of roasted-veg girasole, in a pesto and goat-cottage-cheese sauce, with toasted pine nuts

* * *

And then, just like that .....

It was all over.

As we were packing the night before our 24-day ex-Schengen trip, my host came to me and said Ah, sorry, as none of the projects that we brought you here for are actually anywhere near fruition, and we can't really afford to keep feeding you, we're going to need to rent your room out. Can you move in with Lish when you get back?

It appears that this had been discussed and decided between them that day, the day after we had just booked all our trains, including the return to Pau train ...

I'm dumbfounded and crushed. Still processing.

To give them grace, it may have been a very difficult decision for them to have to make; the conversation was always going to be super-awkward; he is always very direct and to the point; and maybe he just wanted to rip the band-aid off.

The flight - because it felt like fleeing - from there to where we are currently - was a very difficult and painful day. Nothing seemed to go to plan. Lish had to return their rental cello and rental car - the cello guy wasn't available til 2pm, the train tickets were at 3.15, we had to take first the cello, then the car, then get back from the airport to the train station, it was impossible ... we had to rebook the train tickets on the hop ... we were expecting to travel light, but we now have our enormous bags with us as well ...

We staggered into Bordeaux quite late in the evening. I was looking forward to a shower and some room service. Room service was not on, on Friday nights.

Lish, amazing Lish, arranged for Uber Eats and we had a bed-picnic of quite respectable poke bowls.

The next day, it was better. Stay tuned.

La Vie Quotidienne

Autumn has arrived with a Woot!!!

We woke up and the view was GORN!

Sad news to report on the Fibre front:

The sleeve that I was knitting for my latest jumper (that I am math-ing on the hop) was too narrow!

So ... back to the drawing board

I'm going to need seven cables, not five. On recommence!

Fried rice; stir-fry of assorted veggies; scrambled eggs

Produce from the garden. This photo came up looking like a Renaissance still-life!
I have in mind to attempt to paint it (not being a painter AT ALL, so far I'm a One Hit Wonder) when I get home.

Wednesday, Market day, was grey and wet!

The week before, I was meeting up with our new friends Glenn and Anne-Marie, and as I was saying hello to them, a lady came past wearing an AUSTRALIA t-shirt!

Everyone, meet Nathalie!

She has a daughter in Melbourne, and I think she's planning to move there.

She has the chickens and eggs stall at the market. Beautiful free-range farm-raised chickens.

This week, I planned to buy a chicken from her.

Turns out, the chicken comes with ALL its bits.

This also is a still-life (okay, spoiler alert: it's completely dead) painting.

I cut the head off, took the guts out, roasted everything, this damn thing cost 17€, you're gonna need to use EVERYTHING.

Credit: RecipeTin Eats - Roast chicken

Made the herb and butter mixture, filled the under-skin with it.

Then I had to go out for various things (school pickup, haircuts etc) - I had left instructions to my host lady to turn the oven on, put the chicken in.

I FORGOT TO SAY TURN THE OVEN DOWN!

We were much later home than expected, due to the haircuts. There's me sitting in the hairdresser's, squirming, thinking of my nearly $40 chicken drying out to a crisp back at home!!!!!

We got home.

The chicken was well-cooked. More than I would have liked. But not irretrievably so.

It was still wonderful.

I wonder how it will be if I actually do it properly, surveying it at every step.

The liver and kidney were in the chicken. I roasted them all. The resulting juices were made into gravy and it was a thing of absolute joy and beauty.

Served with mashed potato, Cauliflower with [Comté] cheese sauce, and green beans (yes, still) from the garden. Exceptionel. Even from the point of view of the fussy kids.

Lish bought a bûche (log) of goat cheese, and within a day had eaten 2/3 of it :) Welcome to France!

Also Wednesday: kids at home; rainy; market day.

I made Minestrone for lunch!

Thursday: Lish and I spent some time in their cute little village.

Lish's address is

Rue des Lavandières - "street of the washerwomen"

20m down the road is this beautiful little construction across the water source:

It's here that the women would wash the clothes.

There's a thing that shuts off the water flow, to fill up the basin

This is the slate roofing, with the little metal pins that hold everything in place

We finally managed to hit up the little Salon de Thé in their little village!

Pain au chocolats - om nom nom

Such a cute space

Lish has now been a couple of times without me, and is successfully ordering "un chocolatine* et un thé noir avec lait, s'il vous plaît".

* pain au chocolat, only they don't call it that, here!

Lish and I had plans to leave for three days over the weekend. Caroline was going to be on her own without husband, without au pair. I needed to make sure that nobody starved while I was gone!

Firstly though, can we have a shout-out to the Pyrenées, where there is SNOW!!!!!

Friday I made stock from the carcass of the roasted chicken; and sauce for pizza nights (x 2 probably)

It was just me and Caroline for lunch. She wanted a nice salad, to which I added some of the leftover roast chicken

Me, I had the last serving of the Samosa Pie. Finally a halfway decent photo of it!

And a bonus round of banana cake, to get them through the weekend.

Not shown: Roasted Butternut and Lentil soup. Caroline won't have to do more than reheat the entire time I'm away :)

Ils ne vont pas mourrir de faim!!!!

Of course, as usual, Friday night was Pizza Party ™

Bayonne ham

Tomato-basil

Florentine (egg and spinach and garlic)

Roast chicken and avocado

Fun unexpected thing: a hot-air balloon in our view!!!!

NANTES

And finally, Lish and I set off *really early* on our road trip!

We dropped in to Bordeaux, sort of looking for something for brunch, but it was too hard, so we took a few fleeting photos and trundled on.

We had a lunch booking for 1pm! We just made it!

Frédèric is my very long-time friend. We calculate we have known each other for about 47 years. I first visited him 40 years ago, on my first trip to France. He's been once to Australia. Every time we come to Europe, if it is at all possible he manages to come and see us, though it will require a several-hours train trip to do so. So we really had to return the favour and do the 5-something hours road trip to see him!

We went to a restaurant that was wall-to-wall-to-ceiling kitsch!!!

Entry to the toilet was via an armoire!!

The walls of the toilet stall were covered in old LP covers!!

We walked back to the tram, past the Château of the Ducs of Bretagne, and promised to come back the next day and visit it properly.

It's so pretty! Most castles are rectangular. This one has round bits everywhere!

Entrance is across an honest-to-god drawbridge!

And there's a people drawbridge as well, to the right of the main horses-and-carriages one.

Pass through the main gate, and on the other side of the walls is a big courtyard, with an interesting number of separate buildings.

Here's the well!

The main château building is now a museum. Stand by for an offensive number of photos of the exhibition.

Bronze casting of the death mask of Duchess Anne of Bretagne (1488-1514)

Friendly-looking little grotesque decorating a random corner

Graffiti was a thing, all the way back in 1761

The castle is local limestone, so white and pretty.

There has to have been a floor at this level, at some point.

Fabrics preserved from the time of slave trade.

I actually found the whole exhibition on colonialism and the slave trade terribly confronting. I had to force myself to look, although I did not want to. What those people suffered needs to be acknowledged.

Figure-head from a slave-trading ship

Nantes is a port city, and was a big ship-building industry.

Built at the Penhoët shipyards in Saint-Nazaire, the *Lutétia* set sail in 1913. Measuring 183 meters in length and boasting 26,000 horsepower, the vessel operated regular passenger services—first for the Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique and later for the Compagnie Maritime des Chargeurs Réunis—connecting Bordeaux, Dakar, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires. Requisitioned during World War I for troop transport and subsequently as a hospital ship, the liner did not return to its original role until after 1920. Decommissioned in 1938, it remains a flagship example of early 20th-century shipbuilding in Saint-Nazaire.

There were a bunch of very nice portraits, but I couldn't help but think they looked terribly modern. Lish says this is described as "iPhone Face".

She sort of looks like she's done with life

This guy is more "90's Rom-Com Face"

until you see his threads!

Saint Elmo!!

Patron saint of sailors

The exhibition runs serially through a bunch of galleries, and eventually you suddenly realise that you are up in the rafters of the castle!

Another fun little guy

This is interesting, and apparently there's "nothing new under the sun"

* Shame to whoever does not revolt against social injustice *

After all that history, we needed refreshment! So we stopped for a galette - goat cheese, with stewed apples. Highly recommend.

Fortified, we moved on to the cathedral.

Nantes Cathedral suffered a fire, similar that which damaged to Notre-Dame de Paris, in 2020. They're still restoring it, but they look like they are getting quite close to finishing.

Inside: it's BEAUTIFUL.

Again, similar to Notre-Dame, the restoration process has cleaned centuries of smoke and grime off the walls, and the pure, creamy limestone is revealed.

Lish said it looks like an elven building, and I agree!

This is the inside side of the tall wall that is covered with the green tarp at the front of the building.

Old-style lights, sympathetically modernised with electric lights, but the same
old, old feeling.

The only leadlight window that remains, of those that were replaced after the windows were shattered by *ALLIED* bombing in WW2.

1959

New windows, made in 1981

Signed by the artist

In this side chapel, what is on the walls behind the painting and the altar, is painted decoration! So meticulous and so perfect.

It looks to me like they are starting work on this chapel

So far only a little part has been done.

Child shown for scale

And also, I love the stripeyness of the limestone! and how they didn't mind that the stripes weren't the same heights

The Virtues on the Tomb

The cardinal virtues—Fortitude, Justice, Prudence, and Temperance—frequently incorporated into Italian Renaissance tombs, evoke the moral qualities of the deceased. Often set within niches or supporting a sarcophagus, they are arranged in an innovative manner around the recumbent effigies. They thus represent the first figures in true the round—visible from all sides—in French statuary.

The recumbant figures are the parents of Duchess Anne. She had these scupltures commissioned.

We were looking to get back to the tram line, but almost directly outside the cathedral there was a bus going to our exact stop. We ran to hop on - the driver kindly waiting for us.

Public transport is free all weekend in Nantes! What a brilliant idea.

We got very giggly at the stop names

Freddy is somewhat constrained from leaving the hotel he manages, so we ate in both nights - the second night, Lish wanted to cook!

We had to nip over to the supermarket in the morning before our day in the town, because French supermarkets close at 12 on Sundays, if indeed they open at all!

The hotel manager's studio is very tiny, with a TINY kitchen. Lish did very well with what was available.

A dish of their own devising, comprising rigatoni, a bottled sauce with asparagus, tomato and Parmesan, some herbs and stock, mozzarella gratin.

And a very small rolled turkey roast!

Freddy loved it and wants Lish to write down for him what went into it, so he can replicate it. There was enough left for him to have for dinner the next night.

And then, sadly, all too soon it was time to leave again.

Next time I come to France, Freddy will be retired and we will be able to do much more stuff together.

The trip back started out with quite a lot of rain.

The tops of the wind turbines were obscured by mist

We did a little side-trip off the autoroute, to go and see La Rochelle, which unfortunately was a bit of a bust due to the poor weather. But it has some lovely architecture.

This sculpture at the beach was all the more poignant to me, having just seen the exhibition at the Nantes Musée. This is a black slave woman, giving suck to a white child, while her own child pulls at her skirt, having to wait his turn.