An Antique Butter Kneader

I spotted this unusual hand mill at the annual summer brocante (flea market/garage sale) in Preuilly. I wondered what it was for and asked the vendor. As soon as he said 'c'est pour malaxer le beurre' I knew exactly what it was because I'd seen the process performed in modern stainless steel on video. It is for kneading butter after it has been churned and before it is shaped into pats. An apparatus like this is for the best butter, so the object is rare because not all farmhouse butter producers did a thorough kneading.

 

It is for working the butter so that the last few drops of buttermilk can be squeezed out, and salt crystals can be added and evenly worked in. The salt will also draw out even more liquid, so that the butter is said to 'weep'. If you want to see a malaxeur à beurre just like this one in action, visit La Maison de Beurre in Saint Malo (Brittany) and check out the very similar machine used by Bordier [link]. A lot of people consider this to be the best butter in the world.

Traditionally these 19th century machines are made of teak, so I assume that is what the wood of this one is.

I can remember my mother making butter, up until I was about 10 years old (ie 1970). After the house cow was milked, by hand, the cream was separated from the milk in a centrifuge with an electric motor housed in a small shed at the bottom of the garden. Then the cream was beaten in the stand mixer. Once Mum had something that looked more or less like butter it was flushed a couple of times with water, then tipped out onto the bench and beaten and squeezed with hand held wooden paddles rather than run through a butter kneader. Then with those same paddles it was shaped into blocks (pats), making sure to give a nice pattern from the ridges on one side of the paddles, before being wrapped in waxed paper for storage in the fridge.

Ukrainians on the Move

Two more apartments in the Cité de Tilleuls are nearing the completion of their refurbishment so two more Ukrainian families can move from their temporary accommodation. The Cité de Tilleuls is a housing development in Preuilly dating from, I would guess, the 1970s, consisting of a number of small apartment blocks. Originally they would have housed workers from the furniture factory, but that closed in 2000 and now many of the apartments are empty. Earlier this year we moved several Ukrainian families into apartments there and now we can rehouse Natalyia P and Natalyia N, who each have a son aged about 11 and a daughter aged about 8.

Christiane talking with Bruno, who is painting the bathroom.

 

After picking up some furniture donated by one of my neighbours, a recently widowed English woman, Christiane and I went down to inspect progress on the apartments. Patrice, the painter decorator, was there, and his employee Bruno, who painted our kitchen some years ago. The main problem they've encountered is damp and the apartments have been empty for years.

Substantial areas of wall had to be repaired and replastered in one of the bathrooms because of damp.

The apartments are owned by private landlords but managed by the social housing agent Habitat Sud Touraine. For the moment the rent and utilities bills are to be paid by Ficosil, another local government agency who specialise in getting people in difficult situations into housing. One of the Natalyias is working, as a cleaner and aide at the aged care home. Back in Kyiv she was a business woman, with a cheese boutique. The other has just finished a three month intensive French course and has started a work experience placement at a florist. Back in Kyiv she did a variety of jobs and made costume jewellry.

Some furniture has been donated, other pieces have come from Emmaus, the major charity in France that deals with house clearances and suchlike (the equivalent of Saint Vinnies in Australia).

The view from one of the bedrooms.

The apartments were built in the days when it was still normal to make the staircase from oak, almost certainly French and probably locally sourced. Nowadays a wooden staircase would be in an African hardwood, like ours is.

Every Day Has Been on the Claise for Eleven Years Today

Today is our 11th anniversary in France so I've decided to repost what Simon wrote on the day we arrived.

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That was exciting!

Susan and I arrived in Preuilly at about 1.30 pm, having been delayed somewhat in Rouen. (More on the trip later.) John and Jill arrived and helped us unload the car, and about 90 minutes later David and James arrived in the truck.

Within about 10 minutes of starting to unload the corner of the barn I had cleared for storage was full, and as things progressed our belongings took over the whole barn. I am not sure whose stuff we are storing but we can't own that much stuff. David and James were brilliant, as were John and Jill who arrived again to help unload the truck.

David, the neat removalist

 

David and James had suffered a poor ferry trip - it was REALLY windy so the ferry was a bit bouncy - then a long drive at not very fast speed in an overloaded truck, yet still managed to be really efficient and happy and chirpy. I am not sure I would have been capable!

James. It's good a see a man happy in his work.

Susan went up to l'Image and booked them a room for the night, and then she set too in the kitchen. After unloading we sat in the garden, listened to the silence, and took in liquid replenishments and a plate of saucisson, chevre and fresh baguette.

Then it was over. The truck was reversed all the way down the street, John and Jill departed to cook dinner for us (thanks again) and we were left, bemused, in a house FULL of stuff, to start our new life in France.

Reversing down the street

Everyone has been brilliant - from JB, Rosie, Kippa, Pat and Geoff, who cleaned, lifted and encouraged like fury in London, John and Jill who volunteered to unload and then provided us with dinner, and David and James who were incredibly cheerful even though I am sure they were overworked.

Simon

p.s. I know we are in France and an hour in advance of ourselves London-wise, but we have decided not to change the time we post on the blog. This will give us a chance to write entries on the day they post.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Anniversary of Our First Night in the House (2007)

It is the thirteenth anniversary of our first night in our house in Preuilly. We hadn't moved in at that point, but were still just coming over from London from time to time. It was like camping we had so few home comforts. This is a repost from 3 April 2007.

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This was a long standing planned trip, partly in order to try put a little pressure on M.Galland (the roofer) to start soon.

We had booked on SpeedFerries, leaving on their first sailing of the new season. On the Monday before we left we received an email saying that the start of service had to be delayed, so we had to make alternate arrangements. Luckily I was able to book a ticket with Norfolk Lines, which is a longer journey (2 hours to Dunkerque, which also adds the best part of an hour to the drive) so all was not lost. The amended booking meant that we had to leave home at 3.30am in order to make our 6.00am sailing from Dover, which meant that by the time we arrived in Preuilly we had been on the road for 13 hours including a diversion through Rouen, a town which appears to have me totally jinxed.

Our first port of call was M. Bertucelli to check on the plumbing works, which we were assured were complete. This caused us to rush to the house, as the thought of having our own toilet was very exciting.

Arriving at the house, first port of call was to wonder at the new technology - a flushing WC. We flushed, and the cistern didn't fill up. I turned on the stopcock inside the house (which made no difference) so we moved outside to the external stopcock. This is a metre under a metal plate in the middle of our neighbour's driveway. I leaned into the hole to turn the water on... and my mobile phone and hankie dropped out of my pocket into 6 inches of muddy water. I don't know if it was the sacrifice of my phone that caused the water to flow (could have been turning the tap on) but we now have tapwater and a flushing WC. Excellent!!

The next move was to set up our kerosene heater (donated to us from the junk left by previous tenants of our house in London). This meant a trip to Yzeures to buy fuel and various foodstuffs. It's always a pleasure to wander around a hardware store after driving for 13 hours....

We had our first dinner together in the house, vegetable soup, followed by bacon and beans and pastries for dessert. We weren't exactly warm, but the heater took the edge of what was to be a cold night.

It rained during the night, which meant our slumbers were accompanied by the sound of dripping water, but at least none of it entered the room we were sleeping in. We did decided, however, that we would erect our picnic tent/gazebo thing in the front room, and put the bed in there. This would provide us with a waterproof roof, and a lot more room so we could set up washing facilities. It also means that we can have our clothing in the same room we sleep in, making inter-room dashes in the cold unnecessary.

Friday was occupied with cleaning the front room, setting up the tent, moving the bed, putting a curtain over the space a door would normally occupy (and will, one day, occupy again). We also found time to visit M. Galland, the bank and the supermarket (and the hardware store). This set the pattern for the weekend - cleaning, visiting hardware stores, and plotting how we will proceed with the work.

The only real diversion came on Saturday, when we met the man from the dechetterie (the local dump, although it's more of a transfer station) whom our neighbours had organised to remove the piles of cuttings from our garden. He took a trailer of clippings to the tip, and we followed. He explained the system to us, and we trotted off to collect our own carload of stuff to junk. Most of it was "mixte", but we did have some glass, wood and cardboard which went in their respective skips, as did the old paintbrush cleaning mixture. As they say in the area; "Au pays de Descartes, je pense, donc je trie" (In the land of Descartes, I think, therefore I sort).

Cowslips

 We were amazed by how cold it was, considering how advanced spring seems to be. All the roadsides were covered in cowslips (coucou in French, the first of the wild primroses to appear) and the cherries and plums were blooming, as were the magnolias. Until recently, cowslips were big news in England, as modern farming techniques had destroyed much of their habitat. Thankfully they are on the way back in the UK, but we have never seen them in these numbers

On Sunday afternoon we rewarded ourselves with a drive in the country. as we drove on the road towards le Grand Pressigny (a trip we have done many times) I noticed, for the first time, the chateau at Etableau, a hamlet about 1.5 km from le Grand Pressigny. Why we have never noticed this before I can't say. It isn't as if it is small or anything....

Etableau.

 

We also saw a different view of the chateau at le Grand Pressigny, which makes it look like a cutaway from a Richard Scarry book.

Although it sometimes feels like we aren't progressing with the house, it is coming on peu en peu and we are getting a lot better idea of what it is we want to do with it, which is a lot better than acting before you've decided!!

Simon

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Geography Project

Recently, at the request of my friend Lisa, I wrote a short blurb, with pictures, about growing up in Australia then living as an expat in England and France. It was a contribution to a geography project that her niece in the USA was working on. Lisa is an American married to an Englishman and living in Belgium. Like many highly mobile expats of our generation, she has a wide circle of peers and friends, so her niece received contributions from Switzerland and Turkey (who also wrote about living in Russia and Egypt) amongst others. I thought I might as well share what I wrote on the blog.

Growing up in Australia

I was born in Australia in 1959, in the south-eastern State of Victoria. My family were farmers and I went to a very small rural school with 22 pupils and one teacher until I was eleven years old. Then we moved further north, to south-east Queensland. At first we lived on a farm but when I was fourteen we moved to a small town. I went to High School there, riding my bicycle to and from school every day, with 350 other students. We were very lucky because the Minister for Education lived in our town, so we had an exceptionally well equipped school for such a small town, with a new science block and a good library! I finished school in 1977 and went on to study Business Management at an Agricultural College about an hour away from my parents place.

Uluru.

My parents were keen naturalists, and members of several birdwatching and natural history societies. As a family we travelled widely in Australia, often with other naturalists who were friends of my parents. They had kids about our age too, so several families would spend time together, camping at the beach, in National Parks or in the desert during the school holidays. Between us we could identify everything we saw in the natural world and it was a wonderful childhood where we were encouraged to respect and learn about nature. In the 1970s this made us rather an unusual family in a small country town. Other kids in my class were spending their holidays at the beach, surfing and fishing. I never learnt to surf and prefer the mountains and the desert to the beach.

Moving to England

When I was 36 my husband and I decided to quit our jobs in Australia and move to England. I was lucky enough to get a job with the National Trust, the largest heritage and nature conservation organisation in the world. I worked with many dedicated people in the Historic Buildings Department and my job was to organise training in how to care for the historic collections in all the houses the National Trust owns. I got to go all over the British Isles as part of my job, visiting historic houses and working with professional conservators. I learnt about textiles, furniture, ceramics, glass, stone, clocks, paintings and natural history.

The view from my office window in London.

Moving to France

After twelve years in England my husband and I decided to move to France. As both France and the United Kingdom were part of the European Union, and by this time we both had British citizenship, we had the right to live and work anywhere in the EU, and chose to exercise this right. At the time of writing, Britain is planning to leave the EU, and so we have had to take steps to protect our right to continue to live in France. It has been a challenging and stressful time, but we are happy in France. We live in a small town right in the middle of France, in the Loire Valley. Once again I am involved with local natural history societies and enjoying living in a rural location after some years in the big city of London. I work as a guide, taking people to see the famous chateaux of the Loire Valley, as well as wineries and other less well known sites.

Participating in the anti-Brexit demonstration in London in October 2018.

Ten Years

It's 10 years ago today since we arrived at our house with all our goods to become residents of France.

The last 10 years have been a bit of an adventure - getting to grips with life in a new language, starting a business, and meeting many kind, interesting, and helpful people. Along the way we have done a mountain of house restoration, discovered the joys of classic motoring, and been warmly welcomed by our new neighbours as members of the community.

We have even managed to unpack many of these boxes.

It hasn't all been easy or fun, but it's been good.

You can read about our moving adventures here

Moving a Wardrobe

For the whole of September our street has been blocked. Our neighbours across the road, Laurent and his family, have had their roof completely redone by local Preuilly firm Couverture Veron. The house is a holiday home and Laurent et al live in Alsace, coming down a few times a year for short breaks and a whirlwind of renovations. The truck and lifting machine used by the roofers, not to mention their scaffolding, has meant that the street has been blocked from 8am to 5pm every week day at the level of our courtyard. At night and over the weekends they have been parking their lifting machine in our courtyard, and that led us to have an idea.

 The wardrobe is loaded into the scoop.

In return for the use of our courtyard, which didn't really inconvenience us because we have space out the back as an alternative to park the car, we asked the roofers if they would help us get a wardrobe upstairs. They benefitted by being able to leave the big machine on site for the whole of the job, rather than having to drive it back to the depot every evening. The wardrobe we wanted moved has lived in our sitting room and stored things like guitars ever since we moved here and discovered it was too big by just a few centimetres, to go up our stairs and into our bedroom. What we wanted was for them to lift it up to the first floor bedroom window, which it would easily fit through.

 The apprentice rides up with the wardrobe. 

(I suspect he is taking the opportunity here to perve into Anne and John's workshop across the road.)

I explained our problem and we set a date for just after lunch the day before they finished Laurent's roof. We shuffled furniture as necessary and cleaned behind things that hadn't seen a vaccuum cleaner or a duster for quite a long time. I was rather shocked to see just how dirty one corner of our bedroom really was. 

 I couldn't get a photo of him doing his tightrope act, but here is the roofer, 

one foot on the windowsill, one on the scoop.

We lined the lifting machine's scoop with cardboard and lifted the wardrobe out of the sitting room window on its side. It isn't heavy or very large and fitted quite neatly. Just to be sure it wouldn't move though the apprentice roofer travelled up in the bucket with the wardrobe. On reaching the right height and distance from the upstairs window the roofer driving the machine stopped, hopped out of the cabin, tightrope walked up the hydraulic arm and jumped in through the window. Then he, the apprentice and Simon lifted the wardrobe in and set it down. Unbelievably easily done, taking no more than 10 minutes (probably less).

 Simon and the roofer lift the wardrobe in through the first floor window.

The wardrobe matches the other one in our bedroom, and the bedside tables. It is part of a suite of furniture that Simon acquired when he bought a house in Australia and the furniture was left in the house. There is also a bed and a dressing table, which we have in the guest bedroom. It is well made of some Australian hardwood (no doubt a eucalypt of some sort). It will be nice for Simon to have something a bit classier than a blue teflon zip up wardrobe for his shirts. But the guitars will have to find a new home.

A big thank you to the Veron roofing guys, who were friendly and careful throughout.

Seven Years Ago Today (Today!)

Our day in pictures from seven years ago. When I think about the day, it still feels like a big adventure.

There is an explanation (if one is needed) here.

Seven Years Ago Today

This is the story of our day in photos from seven years ago.

You can read all about it here and here.

I Exist! and I have the Carte Vitale to prove it

When we moved to France in 2009 we were able to do so fairly easily because we are citizens of a fellow EU country (Britain) and thus are able to live and work in any EU country automatically. One of the things we did fairly quickly on arrival in France was to register as autoentrepreneurs. This business/tax category is for small scale self employed people, who either wish to stay small scale because they are part time or because they are testing a business idea and want to stay simple tax wise and inexpensive accounting wise. The reason we chose to do this was twofold. First, we genuinely did want to set up a business. The second was because it was the single simplest thing we could do to establish our eligibility for a Carte Vitale (French state healthcare card), giving us automatic and easy access to the excellent French state health care system.

As independent professionals (professions libérales) we were automatically affiliated to the social security administrators Régime Social des Indépendents (RSI). They work closely with an insurance company Réunion des Assureurs Maladie (RAM) and to be honest, I've never worked out quite where the division of labour is. We pay our social contributions to RSI, but it is RAM who reimburse us when we have a medical expense. RSI administers eligibility for the Carte Vitale and issues it. Or something...You've also got URSSAF and CPAM, and RSI and RAM are divisions of them. Or something...

 A sample Carte Vitale, courtesy of Wikipedia and Creative Commons.

We sent off our applications and copies of our identity documents.  They gave us temporary social security numbers and promptly asked for translations of our identity documents, which they are not supposed to do if dealing with citizens of an EU country who are born in an EU country, as Simon is. We didn't know this at the time and duly got translations of everything. These were sent off and eventually -- months later -- Simon suddenly received a form asking him to supply a passport style photo so they could issue his Carte Vitale. After another wait -- RSI take a remarkably long time to process documents always (think months...) -- his card arrived in the post. This meant that for visits to the doctor or dentist his card was put in the reader and our reimbursement of the fee turned up automatically in our bank account a few days later. The percentage of the point of use fee that is reimbursed varies depending on what the doctor charges and what the standard fee is. For an ordinary GP visit we pay the doctor €23 and are reimbursed €14 for example. For Simon's recent dental crown we were charged €280 for the final fitting of the crown and reimbursed €73.

Simon was clearly sorted, but there was no sign of a card for me. I emailed RSI. They said it was something RAM had to deal with. I emailed RAM. They said it was something RSI had to deal with, but not to worry -- in the meantime I could still claim my reimbursements by posting them a feuille de soin (care form) each time I paid a health care bill. Fine. That worked perfectly well and so I didn't pursue the matter.

Then I discovered, quite by accident, that anyone born outside the EU must have their birth certificate translated and apostilled (whatever that was...) I waited with interest to see how long it would take for RSI or RAM or whoever to inform me officially that I needed to do this. There was no incentive for me to take action because a) I was being reimbursed, and b) obtaining a birth certificate with apostille and official translation would be expensive.

Finally, in February 2014, a letter arrived telling me that INSEE (the national office for statistics) required that I do the apostille thing. Frustratingly I was in Australia at the time and the letter sat in France unopened until I got back. That meant I had to arrange the documents from afar. After getting in touch with RSI and the Australian Consulate to try to find out exactly what was required and how I went about aquiring it I went through the same process with the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the Australian State of Victoria and the Passport Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Melbourne, the capital of that State. RSI told me I had to get in touch with my embassy. The Consulate told me I needed to get in touch with Foreign Affairs. After a couple of email exchanges, each time getting a little more information but never enough for me to be absolutely clear about what I had to do or what the process was I emailed the last person who had emailed me from Foreign Affairs and expressed my frustration about how nobody seemed to know what the procedure was and that I wasn't willing to wing it because every step of the way costs money. That at last got me a sensible and helpful email from someone who did know what the procedure was.

I ordered my birth certificate online from the Registry Office of Victoria and paid the fee with my bank card. Victoria is the state I was born in and birth records are administered by the States in Australia. I already had a copy of my birth certificate, but that wouldn't do for INSEE/RSI as it was issued in 1988. They wanted one that was less than 3 months old. Then I downloaded a form requesting that my birth certificate be apostilled by the Passport Office in the same state, again paying the fee with my bank card. An apostille, I had discovered by now, is a sort of belts and braces stamp of authentication for documents of identity. You can't trust those foreign Johnnies, you know.

In order for the Registry Office to actually issue my birth certificate I had to prove my identity and send them copies (not originals) of 3 documents which showed my name, current address and date of birth, in English (or with translations if in French). The one to show current address was a bank statement from my UK bank. I had to request it specially, as the bank normally issues electronic statements, but it did save me the time and cost of a translation of, for example, a French bank statement. These documents had to be certified as true copies by either a public notary or a policeman, who had to stamp the copies with their official stamp and sign them. I made an appointment with the local notaire who happily made copies and stamped them. To my dismay, her offical stamp just says 'notaire', not 'notaire public'. My instructions stated that the stamp had to say 'notary public'. What to do!? In the end she laboriously hand wrote a long phrase on each copy stating that she was the state appointed notary and noted the relevant law reference. Fortunately the Registry Office were happy with that. To her credit she didn't charge me for her services (and was the only one in the whole process who didn't charge a fee).

I posted the documents off to the Registry Office with a covering letter asking them to forward the birth certificate to the Passport Office for the apostille. It took them about a month to issue the birth certificate and when they did I got an email from them asking where the form requesting the apostille was. I replied that I had sent it directly to the Passport Office. No one had told me that normally people send the apostille request form to the Registry Office along with the other documents and they then forward the whole lot to the Passport Office. Government departments that talk to one another -- wow! It had never occurred to me that one government agency would want to receive a form which had nothing to do with them and was to be processed by a different government agency.

After another few weeks wait the birth certificate with its big red raised apostille stamp on the back arrived in the post from the Passport Office. Now I had to get the birth certificate and apostille translated by an officially certified translator (Fr. traducteur assermenté). I basically chose one at random from the official translators website.

She turned out to be efficient and easy to deal with. I explained what I needed by email, she quoted me a price, I paid her €70 via PayPal, sent her scans of the birth certificate and she did the translation within a couple of days and sent it back to me both electronically and in the post.

Finally, I sent off the documents RSI had requested all those months ago. The pre-addressed return envelope they had helpfully provided was way too small so I used one of my own. After another month or so, my original documents came back in the post, with a chirpily worded post-it note attached saying 'Bonjour, here are your documents' and nothing more. No indication of whether they were acceptable or if I would be receiving a Carte Vitale any time soon. I waited another month. A letter arrived from RSI asking for a passport style photo and a copy of a piece of photo identification within 15 days. Wooohooo! That must mean they are going to issue a card! Interestingly, this was the only letter I received from them that was dated or included any sort of deadline. Form letters from French government agencies are often not dated.

Off I went to the photo booth at the supermarket and got the necessary photo then posted it and the requested identification to RSI (to a different address to where I had posted the birth certificate, by the way). At last, on the Monday after Christmas 2014, an envelope arrived from RSI and I could feel it had the coveted card in it!!

I've been paying my social contributions and taxes for nearly 5 years and it has taken all that time to get a Carte Vitale. I don't think it's a record though. A French friend who came back to France after living in Canada for a while, said it took her just as long to winkle a card out of the authorities. The Carte Vitale was introduced while she was in Canada, so although a French citizen she had never had a Carte Vitale when she arrived back. She said it was as though the authorities had never heard of such a thing, just didn't believe her and had no idea how to deal with her situation.

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Au jardin hier: More cherry sucker grubbing. It was a beautiful day yesterday -- heavy frost but brilliant sunshine. The sun had some warmth too -- I had to take my coat off after about half an hour of work in the garden.

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A la cuisine hier: Spicy Lentil, Tomato and Spinach soup from the freezer.
Veggie burgers, full of good veggie gear -- carrots, oats, nuts and seeds.

Unpacking the Past

Since the episode with the mice in the pantry Simon has been concerned that our stuff that is still in boxes in the graineterie is vulnerable. So just lately we've been bringing in a box or two at a time, unpacking them and giving the contents more permanent homes, or checking and repacking so we can be sure they are safe.

 More textiles and haberdashery than you can poke a stick at.

Mostly it's my past we've been unpacking: my big heavy oilskin riding coat that came from the set of the Man From Snowy River; vases made by my friends Ricky, Elise and Gillian; raku pots from Contemporary Ceramics in London; a collection of hair accessories and brooches; three boxes of fabrics and haberdashery; as well as Simon's best dinner service.

 One of the boxes.

Fortunately, everything is in good condition and hasn't suffered by being five years in storage. It's nice to see it all again. It doesn't feel like that long since we set eyes on it.

There are many memories attached to each piece of fabric, each hand made object, but the past is a foreign country, literally and figuratively. I can still remember where I got each length of cloth and what my plans for them were but it won't be me who gets out the scissors for a new project now. Next time I have a bit of spare cash I'll take some to our local dressmaker and have her realise the outfit I have in my mind. I've seen her work and we appear to have similar taste.

The fabrics and the vases belong to the same period in my life, from my mid-twenties to my mid-thirties. Creative stitching and dressmaking was my principle leisure activity. I sewed every day, exhibited my work from time to time and had a circle of like minded friends who all had fabric and haberdashery collections to rival mine. It was something I never regained when we moved to London, despite spending many hours at Hampton Court with the Embroiderers' Guild.

 Large vase by REG.

A job in the conservation and care of historic collections at a large heritage and nature conservation organisation that absorbed my interest and the demise of my beloved Bernina finally put an end to my sewing days. I retained a sewing room, but in time my focus shifted back to my childhood passion for insects and nature. Lace and cotton shared a desk with a microscope and boxes of pinned flies.

The fabric will  get carefully checked, refolded, fondled a bit and packed away again in a more secure box, probably for another 5 years. The vases get to stay out and grace the dining room table, the raku is in the spare bedroom, my oilskin hanging in the entry hall. The hair accessories and brooches will probably just sit in a box in the wardrobe. I've got a lot less hair now and don't wear the sort of clothes you can pin a brooch to.

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A Trip to the Supermarket: Yesterday we took Claudette on a little outing to the supermarket, partly to give her a run, partly to pick up a few bits and pieces. We foolishly thought the rain had finished for the day. It mizzled all morning, but by 2 pm the sky was clear. We got over to the supermarket with no rain, but while we were inside it started to tip down. We drove home with the windscreen cracked open (you can wind a Traction's windscreen out at the bottom) to ensure the water seeping through the aged rubber seal didn't drip down into the cabin but blew out and down the sides of the car. The windscreen seal is one of the few parts for a Citroen Traction Avant that it is now impossible to obtain, but without it, Claudette will remain a fair weather vehicle.

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A la cuisine hier: Spaghetti carbonara, an old favourite which I haven't made for years.

An Anniversary

It seems like we are having anniversaries every year, and a different anniversary every week if we look hard enough. This is a biggie though - three years since we arrived to live permanently in France.

Our first morning as French residents:
The view from the Ibis at Calais Eurostar

On this day three years ago we had ideas of what we would be doing and how we would be living, but no real plans. Just living the adventure was exciting and didn't need to be complicated (on my behalf, anyway) with concepts like seriously making an income.

Buying breakfast at the Baie de Somme...

Since then, we have crystallised our ideas of how the house will look and got some way along the path of making it so, and it appears that our business plans are starting to pay off.

....and lunch at Alençon. Life on the road.

We still have plenty to do, of course, but in three years time we should at least have most of the boxes unpacked.

Simon

Raindrops on Roses*

It's only been 27 months (840 days, to be precise) since we arrived in Preuilly sur Claise to live here. Yesterday living here took one big step forward, when we finally unpacked Susan's dinner service, the serving bowls, and the coffee cups.

Amazingly, nothing has yet come out of its box broken, so the packing (which I wrote about here) appears to have been totally successful. All the plates and mugs were individually wrapped in butcher's paper, then wrapped in lots of 4 plates in bubble wrap, before being put in a cardboard box padded out with shredded tax bills and bank statements.

It all went from the boxes to the dishwasher for a 30 minute quick wash, then into the cupboards. We did have to have a serious house meeting about where stuff went, but we were both thinking more or less the same thing, so there were no issues to be resolved.

*Actually no. These are a few of my favorite things.

Simon

An Anniversay

For us, May is a month of annversaries.

It is two years today since we arrived to live in France. Almost everything we owned arrived in the back of a truck after being bought here from London, and as well as trying to fit everything into the house we started the process of trying fit in to life in a small French town.

Both processes are going variously well: we join in many of the things that happen (even if we aren't sure what's happening some of the time) and with the kitchen properly underway we will soon be unpacking some of the boxes.

Looking at the photos taken at the time has really bought home to me how much we have achieved so far. We may not have many photos of the day, but the memories are crystal clear.

Simon

PS This is the second time we have posted this. Blogger has had serious problems for a couple of days, and all comments have been lost.

Twelve Months

That's how long we have been living in France.

Célestine in the autumn.

As this blog entry appears it will be twelve months exactly since we were driving through Rouen on the way to our new home. The only thing I can remember of the drive is worrying about not being in Preuilly when the removal truck arrived with our belongings. The rest is a blur, as is much of the twelve months since. Since then we have learned an awful lot, most of which we have reported in these pages.

The list of fruit trees we were given when we bought
the orchard.

There have been many highlights: the staircase, the chimney, our new back door, and of course Célestine. We are also making new friends, and are developing quite a social life: something which will develop even more once more of the house is habitable and we can find the dining table again.

A crab spider takes a bumblebee in the Icelandic poppies.

Susan is really enjoying having three gardens to play with, and this year hopes to provide most of our fruit and vegetables as well as a pretty garden for us to look at from the apéro terrasse. I am finding project managing the restoration of the house interesting, if challenging and confusing, and the work is starting to show some real results.

A pâtisserie.

We are starting to get some work with the guided tours: Susan is leading a private group on an orchid walk tomorrow afternoon, and we have some work lined up with Célestine, as well. Fitting in earning an income has had to drop down the list of priorities somewhat for this first year though!

Rabbits and chickens at a country fair.

Susan & Simon

That was the month that was

May has been an interesting month - we spent the first half of the month in London, the second half of the month in Preuilly, and I spent most of the time not being sure where I was...

27 minutes after scheduled departure
time and we are still cleaning

The middle of the month was the biggie, no doubt: actually moving here after 3 years of visiting (It was 3 years ago last Friday - the 29th - that we first saw the house). It was disheartening loading a truck with all our stuff and then discovering we own more than a truckload, but I found it interesting going back to London via the National (non-toll) routes in a Hire Van to pick up the balance.

A new route to the supermarché

Since we have been resident here we have discovered one or two new evening walks, met people we were introduced to through this blog, Susan drove up the main street, we had "Apéro-dînatoire" for the first time, taken 571 photos (to add to the 53 I took before we left London and the 158 I took in London when I drove back). been to a new hardware store, shifted boxes (and then shifted them back again) and - oh yeah - we bought a garden.

Typically, we jumped in at the deep end and have bought 3/4 of an acre (or 2,900 sq metres) of beautifully tended vegetable plot and orchard. 35 fruit trees, including cherries, peaches, apples, pears, various nuts, nectarine, plums and an apricot tree. Quite how we will deal with 7 trees worth of peaches and 6 of cherries we have yet to discover, but it should reduce our fruit bill at the market!

Looking towards Preuilly from our new garden, yesterday.

We haven't yet signed the deeds, but we have agreed a price and the previous owner is anxious not to be maintaining the garden for any longer, so within two weeks we hope to be planting our melons.

So far so good then. Next step is actually starting work proper on restoring the house rather than nest building, and speaking French to each other whenever we are in public.

Simon

Simon the Stoic

Simon set off yesterday evening in the van we hired from SuperU to pick up the remainder of our possessions in London. I am impressed with the stoicism by which he volunteered for this irksome task and hope that the journey goes as well as can be expected.

On the positive side, as he says, once it's done, it's done, and he can settle down and focus on being Prulliacien.

And the trip has resulted in two milestones for me. First, I got to drive up the Grande Rue all by myself, coming back from SuperU, while Simon drove the van. True, driving up the Grande Rue is the direction which is not always blocked by parked cars, and true, at 7.30 on Ascension eve, very few cars were parked on the other side any way, meaning that the three cars coming down the Grande Rue were able to easily weave and dodge the parked cars and me. Nonetheless, for someone who has not driven for 12 years except a few practice runs on quiet French country lanes, driving from the outskirts of La Roche-Posay, via two roundabouts, the main road between La R-P and Preuilly and the notoriously fraught main street of Preuilly-sur-Claise without causing anyone along the way to look alarmed is an achievement I am quite proud of.

The second milestone is that this is the first time I have spent alone in our house. Simon has been here a lot on his own, but I never have.

Susan