Saw what

A few weeks back when we went to Troyes and bought our new electric lawn mower, whilst we were there Brian decided to buy himself a table saw. He had been looking for one for a while, but had put it off as he didn’t really need it until we do the library later in the year – after our busy summer period for the Chambre d’Hôte.

What he did need to do though was tidy up his workshop. So he has been busy in the barn reusing some old wood by sawing the edges straight and using it to board out his workshop. There is not much to see at the moment, but he assures me it will be looking much better very soon.

It’s doubled

It was lovely this morning to take a wander into Bar-sur-Seine and enjoy a coffee (or two) at our familiar café de La Halle, just off the market square.

They were already laying up the tables outside for their lunch time flurry when we arrived, we’re never the early birds. I do enjoy being able to sit outside again and while away the morning sipping a coffee and chatting.

After coffee we took a short walk along the high street to our favourite little shop in Bar-sur-Seine, which is not quite so little anymore. It has at least doubled in size since we last visited, as they have knocked a wall through and rebuilt everything. L’instant gourmet is a great place to buy wines, spirits and beers, and has a wide range of épicerie products, which I just love perusing and thinking about how to use in our meals. We regularly buy our coffee beans from there, as they are roasted on site and quite excellent. We also love it for their special treats or presents, with a delicious selection of crafted chocolates. Or just picking up something different to taste.

Watercress soup

A friend shared a delicious recipe for watercress soup this week, and kindly also provided me the fresh watercress to make it. It was so yummy I thought I’d share it.

Chop one small onion and soften in a knob of butter in a largish saucepan.

Make up about 900 ml of vegetable stock.

Chop 3 medium sized potatoes and add to the onion, fry off for about 5 minutes.

Chop a large bunch of thoroughly washed watercress. Add to the potatoes and onion in the pan along with the stock. Make sure everything is covered by the stock.

Simmer for about 20 minutes. During this time add some grated nutmeg to taste and season.

I then added some cream and a grating of lemon zest and warmed through. The other option is to add crème fraîche, enough for your preferred taste.

Serve with crusty bread, and a drizzle of olive oil and cream on top. Chop some soft herbs for the top if you have any.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Sunday Afternoon

After La Ferme des blés d’or we headed off to Chessy-les-prés, a small village on the south western edge of our region. I had wanted to visit the jardins du Val d’Armance, a nursery for flowers and plants. They are actually open all year round, but as we hadn’t visited before we took today as the opportunity.

I have to say they did not disappoint. It was a really healthy, well stocked nursery, with a glorious display of colourful plants, both annuals and perennials. I was conscious I had bought quite a few plants recently, so didn’t want to over-do it, but I still couldn’t resist buying a few trailing plants for some troughs I am going to pot up to go on top of the wall between the courtyard and garden.

We then drove to Cusangy, the village of our mushroom producer. He sells at our local market in Bar-sur-Seine on a Friday morning. I had wanted to visit the mushroom farm for some time, so what better day than today. They had various cellar rooms filled with compost filled, black plastic bags which had various types of mushrooms growing out of them. It wasn’t a pretty environment, but I adore mushrooms, so this was heaven for me. The earthy, savoury smell lingered in the damp conditions. They have a very attractive shop on the premises, which sells all of their mushroom varieties, mushroom pastries, various mushroom sauces and pastes. We will definitely be visiting this shop again.

Sunday in the country

Yesterday was ‘dimanche à campagne’. It is where local producers open their doors to display and demonstrate what they have to offer, and it only happens once a year. Some also invite smaller artisans to set up stalls and sell their wears.

Our first stop off was in the small, historical village of Villemorien at a farm called La Ferme des blés d’or. It is very much a family affair, and was a truly delightful experience.

They had invited a jeweller, who made all her own beads which she then made into bracelets, earrings, rings and necklaces. Her work was exquisite, so colourful and bright, we both loved what she was doing. There was also a ceramicist, from La facotorie in Troyes. We have bought some of her work before, as it’s really quirky, again which we both love. We couldn’t resist, and came away with a chicken and a couple of coffee cups.

The biscuits I’d bought to have with coffee this morning got eaten before we got home, but the girl who bakes them is really local to us, so we will definitely be buying more.

Our little haul

La Ferme des blés d’or produce a range of bio oils, flour and lentils.

I was especially interested in their oils. The first one we tried was chia. They had made their chia oil into a home made mayonnaise, which was superb. The chia seeds were grown, and the oil pressed, all on the farm, it was absolutely delicious. I can’t wait to pour the chia oil onto some local mozzarella, with fresh local tomatoes.

We then tried their flour, again grown and milled on the farm. They had made this into a crusty bread with a soft centre and also, to demonstrate its versatility, made some home made sweet crunchy biscuits – again delicious. It didn’t stop there, as we were also able to try their chanvre, colza and tournesol oils. All extremely well made, superb tasting and so fresh. The colza (rapeseed) oil, was an especially bright, golden yellow, so reminiscent of the plant we see in the fields.

We chatted with the owner, Dominique, who knows all the recipes off by heart, and she agreed to share them with me, so I will call her next week to learn some of her secrets.

Before leaving we got to meet two of Dominique’s sister-in-laws, and learnt more about how the family works together and helps and supports each other across their various businesses, as the family is also involved in viticulture.

It was a lovely morning, and a great way for us to learn more about our local area, and understand what local produce is available for us to use, and serve, for our Table d’hôte guests.

Muguet

We woke to a beautiful blue sky this morning, and a ‘pinch and a punch first of the month, no returns’ (it’s a childhood thing). In the UK 1st May is known as May Day, but in France the 1st of May is celebrated as labour day. It carries with it a very old tradition, which I love. If you offer someone a sprig of lily of the valley (Muguet) it brings good luck, so make sure you accept it if anyone offers you one. I love Lily of the Valley, it’s quite an old fashioned flower, but has a beautiful sweet smelling scent.

I was offered a brin de Muguet outside the bakers this morning, however I did need to hand over 2 euros for the privilege. I don’t mind a bit of entrepreneur spirit.

Apparently this tradition dates back to 1st May in 1561 when King Charles IX offered a sprig of Muguet to every lady in his court. This charming little tradition has continued every year since then. Today it is big business with around 60 million sprigs of muguet sold in France every year. That’s a lot of luck.

Printemps gourmand

Today we visited the spring festival of food in Les Riceys with some friends. Les Riceys is a delightful little village not far from us. The food festival was being held in a group of marquees near the ‘Mairie’, and was showcasing delicacies from all over France; cheeses, meats, nut products, oils, flours, jams, cakes to name a few, and of course wines and spirits. It was very well organised, and each stall offered tastings, and ideas on how to use their produce. The first thing we tasted was the smoked ham, which was delicious, so of course we had to buy some to enjoy at home.

After that we tasted the fondue au Comté, a pot of hot, melted cheese mixed with wine and a bit of brandy that you can dip your bread into. Comté comes from the Jura region, and is one of our favourite cheeses. They were offering a pot that you could share between two or four people for your lunch. We were not quite ready for lunch, so we decided to just note the recipe, and I will try and make it at home. We then moved onto the walnut stall. The stall holders, Anaïs and Jef were displaying pots of nut spreads, jams, oils and vinegars, and making sugar coated walnuts on the stand. We spent some time tasting various deliciously sweet products and, of course, we couldn’t resist buying a few items here. The sugar coated walnuts are delicious, as is the confiture de noix.

All in all a thoroughly delicious and very enjoyable day.

Gone fishing

Yesterday, in the small village of Veuxhaulles sur Aube, we discovered a little gem for a day out, that’s if you are interested in fishing. If you are not, but like to eat fish, they do also have a kiosk selling their award winning trout products.

The trout are farmed on site and released into the nearby river, which you are given access to fish along on an 800 metre stretch of riverbank.

It’s all nicely organised, with the facility to use their rods - available from the site office - if you don’t have your own kit. You pay for what you catch, and the requirement is ‘if it’s caught then you do not throw it back in’, instead you get to take the trout you caught - which they will prepare - home for dinner.

For us, I just wanted to buy some of their smoked trout and some trout rillettes. We will definitely be back for more, as it’s a great way to buy fresh fish. I don’t think we’ll fish for it though!

Step up

I had gone out late yesterday afternoon to a new yoga class that had its first class in the small village of Essoyes, about a ten minute drive from us. It was a very gentle rhythmic class, with a very friendly group of women. I really enjoyed it.

Whilst I was there, Brian finished the garden steps. I think he has done an amazing job, especially as it was never planned.

Top coat

It’s been a delightful day today. We woke to another beautiful blue sky, which always makes me smile. We have our French lesson at noon, so wanted to get started on a few jobs before we sat down with Clare, our French tutor from Figure out French. We’re determined to learn French properly, so we can speak it, read it and write it with equal confidence. It also gives you interesting insights into the French culture, that you wouldn’t necessarily get by translating everything.

I started with getting a top coat on the railings.

Brian wanted to work on the steps. We had decided that the first step is a bit high, so he has retrieved some stone slabs from around the garden to use as a first step. Can’t wait to see this come together.

What’s on this weekend

Where has April gone? May is fast approaching with the days getting longer and the air feeling warmer with a heady scent of spring blossom. The fields are full of bright yellow ‘colza’ and the hedgerows are filling with hawthorn and late spring flowers. The bees are buzzing now, starting their work for the year, and there is a strong feeling of summer being just around the corner.

My tree peony is coming into bloom and looks amazing against the rich greens of the garden, and soft white stone walls.

It was wonderful getting the last of our big jobs completed before we move into our busy season for the Chambre d’hôte (B&B). Having such a great reaction to our Chambre d’hôte business over such a short space of time has been really rewarding. We made a decision very early on not to advertise via the large booking engines such as booking.com, we just take bookings direct via our website. And we have been promoting this via our social media links, and shares that family and friends have also made. So it’s very encouraging that this decision has worked for us.

We are flying into May this weekend and there are some great events in our local area to visit.

The Printemps Gourmand in Les Riceys is a gourmet fair being hosted across the three villages that make up Les Riceys - the Riceys-Haut, Ricey-Bas, Ricey-Haute-Rive. Over three days, 29/30 April and 1st May, about forty riceton producers - that's what they're called - invite you in to taste their Ricey wine. There will also be oyster producers, Bresse chicken farmers, Cantal snails, Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie sardines... the list is quite long, and full of tasty treats that will be great to try. They will also include some street entertainment, although I don’t know yet what that will include, but it will be nice to enjoy a spot of lunch while also enjoying the street entertainment.

On Sunday 1st May ‘Sunday in the country’ is being held again across the region. We went to this last year and really enjoyed it. So I’m looking to discover some new local produce such as; tournesol (sunflower oil), other alternative oils, cheeses, different types of flour, honey etc. This year it looks to be a much larger event. I have added the link below.

https://www.terres-et-vignes.org/dimanche-a-la-campagne/

It’s electric

We had some guests stay this week, so I had wanted to get the lawns mowed. Our old, very heavy petrol lawnmower, which we had bought with the house, was very much on its last legs, and it was starting to lose its pull up the hill. So we decided to invest in a new one.

We began looking, but all the petrol mowers were heavy, or not self-propelled, and with a garden as steep as ours that’s a necessity. Then we started looking at electric mowers. It was a bit of a big change for us mentally, but the more we considered it the more sense it made. We finally bought one made by Stanley, part of their fatmax brand, and I have to say, it’s surprised us.

We calculated that we needed a minimum of two batteries to do our area of lawn, with a bit of strimming around the edges. The great thing about it is that it is so much lighter than our old ‘jalopy’, and Brian made light work in getting the slope mowed. The mulch setting on it also works really well, you just don’t see the grass that has been cut. So no need to collect tubs of grass cuttings. And the big bonus is no more petrol! We are very happy with our purchase.

March of the caterpillar

‘Look out!’ Brian exclaimed . ‘Urh, what the heck? What the heck is that?’ I looked down and could see out of the corner of my eye, a very long thin squiggly thing. I thought it was a snake! But as the film below shows it was something very different.

Step one

The jet washing removed all the moss and lichen off the stone steps and brought out the gorgeous natural creamy colour of the local stone.

What it also did though was remove a lot of the loose grout between the stones. So a decision was made to re grout them. We had half a bag of choux left from when I did the atelier, so we made a start with that, in the hope that we could go back to Point P (builders merchants) to buy more and match the colour.

Not Looking good

We needed to nip out yesterday to visit the opticians. The prescription sunglasses I had bought earlier this year were not working for me. I was finding that my left eye was very out of focus. It’s not easy taking glasses back when you can speak the language, so I was expecting a bit of an uncomfortable conversation going back to a French opticians where I imagined the whole situation being very challenging.

I could not have been more wrong. The lady listened to what I was saying in my best opticians language that I had learnt that morning. She took a look at the glasses, looked at my file, spoke to a colleague, made a phone call, then came back and told me they were going to make me a new pair with a minor change. They should be ready for me to collect in about 10 days. It was all a little unexpected but I was extremely pleased.

Before we left, Brian decided to ask about his ordinary glasses. They had never been quite right, so he asked her if she could adjust the arm. With a smile she took a look, made a few tweaks and hey presto. He did not realise they could be so good.

We were feeling very pleased with our visit, so on a high we decided to visit the garden centre on the way home.

Probably not a good idea, as I did select rather a few plants for the garden. I was very pleased with the selection, especially the deep red geraniums which I’ve put into the urns that are next to the steps up to the lawn.

What it did do was make us look critically at the steps. We decided they really do need a bit of work doing to them. Within minutes the jet wash was in Brian’s hand and he was blasting the stone. I’ll keep you posted on what happened next.

Walk

It was such a beautiful day on Sunday, we got up, ate a hearty breakfast of local bacon, sausages, tomatoes and mushrooms, then headed out for a walk.

I’d wanted to explore a different area, a part we had not walked before, so we headed over in the direction of Essoyes.

The route we followed allowed us to see a lot of different methods used by the growers to prune and shape their vines, and also to see differences in the ways they tend between the vines. Some prefer to leave the grass and weeds, whilst others will cut them, or even weed them out (or spray them them). We had not seen some of the pruning styles used here before, so it made for an interesting walk.

The geography is obviously very undulating, and even the smallest of hills in direct sunlight at can seem like a mountain to climb.

As we neared the highest point of the walk, I knew we were not far from home, as this gravel track leads up to ‘Ferme de signal’, which is just along from the point de vue overlooking our village.

We have added the pdf and a downloadable GPX for this walk onto our hiking page, it is also available on the outdoor active app.

Peonies

I had gone up into the back garden to cut some daffodils and realised that the peonies up there, which are just coming through, were being stifled by the grass. So I decided to head back up there with my wheelbarrow (yes, I bought the plastic one) and dig out the grass around the delicate young peony plants.

Brian then came along and staked those that needed staking, and added some wood chippings around them as a mulch. They are looking better already.

Railings

Bright and early the whizzing and whirring started. The final touches to the railings had begun, and it didn’t take long to get the missing three uprights into place and the top rail closed off. One of the stones at the top of the stairs had also split a bit, but our blacksmith used a product called ‘ton Pierre’ that repairs broken stone, and fills cracks. It sets just like stone, so was perfect for the job.

Over the two days Brian had learnt a lot and had become a great little apprentice to the blacksmith. It had also been a perfect opportunity to practice some french.

We just love how it looks, and so pleased that it has finally made the steps safer. I now need to paint everything, which I will do over the coming weeks.

I have a grey undercoat to paint on, but we are then thinking a black top coat. We shall wait and see what the grey looks like first. It will be nice to be able to see the railings against the old stone.

The gate has worked really well and we just love the weight and strength of it.

I have to say that this has been a great project to have completed this weekend, well nearly completed this weekend. It’s now down to us to finish off.

Iron man

We received an unexpected but super exciting call early last week.

‘The railings are complete, can he come on Friday to fit them?’

‘Yes, of course’ I stuttered. I couldn’t wait to get off the phone and let Brian know. We had scheduled to have the pool opened in May, and ideally wanted this job completed before then to make access to the swimming pool safer, so having them delivered and fitted this week was brilliant.

The blacksmith arrived early on Friday morning and, with the help of Brian, had soon unloaded the pieces he had prebuilt and was fitting them to the steps. However it was not all easy, there was a lot of tweaking that needed to be done to make them fit the very old stone steps.

The steps are very higgledy-piggledy, and a few were too high, so needed some cuts made in them, and one of the support beams needed some adjustments to secure it firmly into the stonework.

After a lot of levelling and minor adjustments they were ready to fix the final 3 uprights which had been left until they were sure everything was straight and level.

But before that he was going to hang the gate. The two cast iron panels which we had bought at a vide grenier had been joined together within a frame to make the gate, but it was now extremely heavy. The three of us struggled to lift the gate to the top of the stairs but we did get there, and soon the hinges were being screwed into the stone pillars to support it.

The gate was in place and fitted perfectly. Now the small detail of the lock.

It was getting late in the day, so we decided to pick it all up again early Saturday morning.

Cupboard doors

I’d got the final coat of paint on the salon doors, and we were able to put them up for the weekend. Each door is extremely heavy, so it took some lifting by the two of us, and some clear instruction to lift them into place and position back onto the hinges.

Brian just needs to put the locks and handles back on, which will happen next week. They fit, and look, so much better, loving what we achieved on them.