My name is Jo, and in 2020 I moved to France with my husband, Brian. From our move to France, to running our B&B, my blog, which you can read below, is a diary of ‘Our French Adventure’. I share short stories about the Champagne region, and its people, and the life we have embraced here.
Double treat
I felt totally spoilt yesterday, as we went to some friends for dinner. It was a really wonderful evening, chatting, laughing and enjoying delicious food and gorgeous wines.
The meal culminated in homemade ‘crêpes Suzette’, served with a bottle of Vouvray, late harvest Chenin Blanc. A perfect pairing and all rather delicious.
I now feel the need to learn to make crêpes and not pancakes. Such a well presented and very tasty dessert to serve.
Fête de la Chandeleur
It’s pancake day in France today. On 2 February every year, ‘La Chandeleur’ is celebrated as the day of the crèpe. For us though it’s a chance to cook pancakes.
La Fête de la Chandeleur is 40 days after Christmas, and culminates in a feast day. it’s actually the official end of the Christmas celebrations, so anyone who hasn’t taken down their decorations will have had to do so today.
I would say pancakes are slightly thicker than crepes, although I made mine this morning with 50% einkorn flour, and 50% gâteau flour; which has baking powder added, so it made them a bit lighter in texture. We prefer them this way now. Brian couldn’t resist getting involved and flipping one.
I just love pancakes. Cooking them reminds me of my childhood, watching Mum making a stack of pancakes for tea was a real treat.
L’anglais
Tuesdays are when we have our weekly French lessons. We are diligently trying to learn our French grammar, building the right foundation for understanding and speaking the language. We decided early on that learning French was very important for us to be accepted, so we started our learning whilst we still lived in the UK. We got very distracted though with day-to-day living, and found it difficult to find the time. Now that we are living in France we make sure that we practice regularly, and there are obviously many more opportunities to experience real life situations.
My understanding of French grows with every new aspect of the language I learn, and more and more I find I can follow the thread of what people are saying. I try to listen in on conversations in the markets, or cafés that I don’t know the subject of, to see if I can pick up on what they are talking about. One of my biggest challenges though is just making simple conversation. If there is a purpose for what I need to say, I’m better, but to start a simple conversation, beyond ‘How are you? Isn’t it a lovely day’ is very awkward for me. I’m picking up more vocabulary now though, and I am pushing myself and trying hard to form casual sentences. I feel that I’m making progress.
Brian throws himself completely into speaking, and is far better at it than me, but for some reason he finds it hard to understand what’s being said. I think he tries to translate words as he goes, rather than listen to a whole sentence and then piece it together, which means he ends up missing whole chunks of what’s been said. Between us though we seem to get by, mostly!
What we have found are some very patient French friends, who also help us and support our learning. Along with listening, watching French news programmes, Duolingo, written material, and the day-to-day living, we are slowly getting there. The main thing is, we are both really enjoying learning French. it can be a lot of fun, and what’s the worse that can happen? So far, we are only aware that we’ve missed one appointment, nearly employed a plumber by mistake and bought a lamp we didn’t want! We have definitely discovered that there is no easy way to learn a foreign language, certainly later in life, but I can recommend it as a great way to keep your brain active.
Let’s see how we progress over the next 12 months.
Hang ‘em high
As you know Brian loves to use his laser, so when I mentioned that it would be really good to get our two newly framed charcoal sketches up in the Jeroboam, it wasn’t long before he had his laser set up ready to put the hooks in exactly the right place.
I’m never really much help in doing these little jobs, other than ‘encouragement’ and maybe handing him his tools.
The day soon drifted by, and I’d realised we hadn’t taken a photograph of them both up on the wall. So we went and made the bed up, and Brian took a photograph using his wide angle lens.
The pictures really add to the warmth of the room.
Tea and cake
The garden was looking very pretty with a light frosting of snow. The air was dry and very cold. We both brought a few logs in to get the fire started. The plan was for a quiet day in, catching up on some reading and our French practice.
I lit the fire, whilst Brian made us some tea, cut a slice of homemade apple cake and we were set up for the afternoon.
Bread run
We woke to a beautiful chilly morning, with a little flurry of snow still floating from the sky, and there was a small dusting of snow covering the village. Brian wanted to nip out early to get the bread, as we have friends staying over tonight for dinner. So he wanted to be sure he got what he wanted.
Bread on board, he headed home. It’s about a 30 minute round trip, but he loves doing it as it’s a chance to listen quietly to french radio en route, trying to pick up the conversations and understand what is being talked about.
I have to admit, I had stayed in bed, it was warm and just too inviting to relax for another ½ an hour. I knew he would try and snap some photos, and was looking forward to seeing them on his return.
He arrived home to a toasty looking house, with a warm welcoming glow of light at the window. Fresh baguettes, croissants and coffee for breakfast, what a delight!
Tubs of joy
I wanted to buy a few more bulbs for the house; I don’t think you can ever have too many, and the thought of spring bulbs warms me, and fills me with smiles. So we visited our local garden centre to see what they had in. I managed to find a few tubs of daffodils that were just starting to poke through, so are probably a couple of weeks away from flowering. I think these will work well in some pots I have.
After a quick coffee, we nipped to the Intermarché to do some shopping before heading back home. They had some massive pomelos in, which I was very tempted by, as they were more yellow in colour, and much bigger than the ones I’d bought from the market! I resisted though.
I couldn’t resist the choice of apples though. I bought a couple of types to make an apple cake, which makes a great dessert served with vanilla crème fraîche.
Pomelo
Yesterday I made some Pomelo marmalade, and this morning I couldn’t resist but enjoy it on a fresh piece of hot buttered toast. Of course I had to use salty butter (sea salt crystal butter).
I hadn’t really heard or seen pomelos before, but last week I saw some at the market and decided to buy 3 to make some marmalade with. They are larger than a grapefruit, and apparently are used to cross with oranges to produce grapefruits.
I thought I would be able to treat them similar to lemons, but once I’d done some research on them I realised they are a lot more bitter than a lemon, and have a tougher pith. Also, the flesh is quite course in texture.
I spent a good hour or more peeling off the outer skin, careful not to take too much pith. I then separated the flesh from the pith, and shredded the outer skin, putting it with the flesh, and any juice, into my jam saucepan. Then I tied all the pith, and all the pips, in some muslin, and placed that in the pan as well. After that, I just barely covered it with water and got it up to a rolling boil. You need to keep squeezing the muslin bag, throughout this process, as this is where the natural pectin to set the marmalade comes from. I used a potato masher to do this.
I’d put a saucer in the freezer so I could use this to test the setting point of the marmalade. You just drop a teaspoon of the marmalade onto the cold saucer, leave it for a couple of minutes, and if it wrinkles when you tip it, it’s ready. I think it boiled for about 30 minutes. It’s best to leave it for about 5 minutes after turning the heat off to cool slightly before putting it in the prepared sterilised jars. I made about 6 jars, and couldn’t resist trying it at breakfast this morning.
Although preparing the fruit was a bit of a faff, it tastes delicious.
Blocked in
Whilst I was working through the last of our boxes, Brian was finishing off the staircase to the atelier. He has made such an excellent job of it, and I can’t wait now to get up there and have a good clean up.
We will need to be a little bit careful using the stairs for now, as he has the light and handrail still to put up, but the main thing is it’s all blocked in and the soot cannot get up there anymore.
Finally
We seem to be whizzing towards the end of January. It is still somewhat chilly here in France, with night time temperatures below freezing point, but I think that will change over the next couple of weeks. January here really feels like a month of hibernation, for me it’s a month of trying out some new recipes, cleaning out some cupboards, and dare I say it, finally unpacking the last of our boxes from when we moved to France two and half years ago. I just hadn’t felt like doing it before, or didn’t need to do it, or had other more important things to do, whatever the reason, this week feels about the right time to make it happen.
We also practiced making hot chocolate, the french way, by melting chocolate into the milk. A rather tasty mid morning hot drink.
Let it shine
I discovered a little tip on how to easily clean silver that’s really worth knowing. I had quite a bit of silver plated cutlery that was certainly in need of a good clean, as the plating had started to tarnish quite badly, so I thought I’d follow the tip and try to clean some teaspoons I had first.
You start by lining a dish with tin foil, then you sprinkle in some bicarbonate of soda, lay the silver items in, then pour on hot water. You then leave it for about 30 minutes, before cleaning them down with an old dry cloth.
Voila, shiny spoons.
I couldn’t help myself once I’d done these, I then started cleaning all the old knives, forks and spoons that I had stored in the kitchen drawer. I went on a bicarbonate frenzy. I have to say though, it does end up smelling a bit odd after a while. Nothing a good scented candle wouldn’t fix though.
Follow the line
There were a few bits Brian needed to do to our reclaimed door, mend a damaged corner, replace the handle mechanism, and add some new hinges.
I had heard him come back indoors and thought it was time for a coffee break, but I could hear him rustling in the kitchen, “what are you looking for?” I enquired. “I need a felt tip pen”. “Okay, rather than use my kitchen one, I’ll get you one from the desk”. I wasn’t sure why he needed it, but he did say he might damage the point.
“I’ll put some tea on” I said. “Okay, I’ll be about 20 minutes.”
20 minutes later.
Strike
We woke late this morning, not sure why, but we were both in need of a lay in. Snow had fallen over night and the morning sun was already warming the rooftops, and the snowy roofs were starting to melt.
It’s a day of strikes in France today, they are striking against the raising of the age of retirement. It is being proposed to move the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, the proposal is for this to happen gradually, a slight rise every 3 months, over the next 8 years. Most people in France do not have a private pension, and rely on the state pension only, so any changes to the retirement age affects a large percentage of the population directly. So I don’t really see much getting done anywhere across France on a day like today, except maybe Brian, who would like to complete the doorway off to the atelier.
I want to just make a quick pudding for dinner later. I have some croissants that we hadn’t eaten, and had gone a little bit stale. So I’m making them into a croissant, butter pudding, my french take on a bread & butter pudding. Instead of spreading the butter on, I melt some and brush it on with a pastry brush. This helps ensure the lighter make up of the croissant is covered, and that the ones on top crisp nicely. I like to soak it in the fridge for a few hours before it’s cooked, so it’s nice and moist when it comes out of the oven.
Just limescale
It was a tad chilly outside today, so we thought we’d do a few jobs in the house. The tap on our bathroom sink, upstairs was becoming really difficult to turn off, it would feel like it was closed, but it still had further to turn. I’d asked Brian if he could take a look at it. After he had fixed the cold tap in the kitchen, I thought why not give it a try. He soon had his tools gathered, and set himself up for the challenge.
I must admit no sooner had I got back from sorting some washing out than he had taken the tap off, cleaned it up, and popped it back on. ‘What was up with it?’ I asked, ‘just limescale’, apparently nothing that a good clean inside wouldn’t fix.
I think this then gave him the confidence to address the ‘La Pavoni’, our coffee maker. He knew this needed descaling but had been avoiding it. Having a lot of limescale buildup is one of the challenges living in a predominantly limestone area. I got the descaler out for use with kettles etc, and left him to it.
It wasn’t long before he had cleaned all the major elements down, inside and out, polished it, so it was gleaming, and started making us a much needed espresso. Quite a successful morning.
Plump
I’d bought some mangoes last week, they were looking particularly plump, and I thought it would be nice to make some spicy, homemade mango chutney, to enjoy with poppadoms on these cold winter evenings.
It really is quite easy to make, you just need:
1kg or so of mangoes (this will make about 2 jars of chutney), peeled, and then chopped into 1cm cubes
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons of ginger, grated
1 cup of vinegar, 1 cup of water
1 ½ cups of sugar, more if you like it sweeter
4 dried chillis
1 teaspoon of salt
I then made up a muslin spice bag containing:
2 cinnamon sticks
2 teaspoons of cumin
2 cloves
4 cardamoms (cracked) and
2 teaspoons of coriander seeds
Add the mango, garlic and water, and cook for about 10 minutes. If you like to have a puréed chutney, then mash the mango now. I didn’t do this though, as I prefer it chunky.
Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about 20–30 minutes, it really depends how juicy your mango’s are. You are looking for a sticky chutney consistency.
Sterilise some jars – I dip mine in boiling water – then place in an oven at 120°c for about 15 minutes.
Then pour or spoon the chutney into the jars, and leave to cool before storing in the fridge. It will keep around 6–8 weeks in the fridge, unless you’ve eaten it before then!
Permis de conduire
One of the hardest things as an expat, living in a country where we are not fluent in the language, is having to deal with lots of unfamiliar systems, and obtain all the relevant paperwork and permits you need to live in a country. Add to that the small matter of Brexit, which still seems to bring changes every week, and the complexity levels double. It can be quite challenging, and involves us in some interesting tasks. It can be difficult to continually ensure we are legal in every aspect. Somehow though, with the help of various very useful websites and forums, I think we manage it.
One such issue is our driving licenses. Brian’s license expires later this year, so under the Brexit agreement we now need to exchange his license for a french one. I cannot do mine as it is still valid, and the rules state only to exchange it on expiry.
To start the application he needed to sign into the ANTS (l’Agence nationale des titres sécurisés) website. To do this he had to have a sign-in from a recognised administrative body. He tried to use his government online identity, but as we are still waiting for our carte vitales (health registration cards), it seems, for some reason, that we’re not able to use that route, because something isn’t completed yet. And that’s one of the complications, it’s not always clear why things won’t work, or what’s needed to complete them. The best option then was to find another, easier way in. We decided the best way was to get our La Poste online presence registered, and use that. Those of you who follow my blog would have seen that we completed that the other day, which included another visit to Bar-sur-Seine to prove who we were by a trip to the post office in person. Our La Poste registration got us into the ANTS website, Hoorah!
Following the instructions we had read from the French Entrée website, we gathered all the materials it said we needed (including taking a rather good digital photo) and started our application. This all came to an abrupt halt at the photo stage, when we were informed we needed to get a ‘certified digital passport photo’ of Brian, not the photo we had taken. So we had to then research where we could get one. Fortunately, after 15 minutes searching, we found that there is a registered studio in Bar-sur-Seine.
Next day, we made a visit to the studio, based at the Intermarché, who very efficiently took the photo, certified it, then provided us a code. We entered the code into the ANTS website, and automatically Brian’s photo was uploaded for his license. It was all rather snazzy actually.
Having used our code, I must say the rest was simple. It is now all complete and we are waiting to be updated on what happens next.
To navigate all these little jobs we use a number of useful online resources. The ones we use, which provide good, useful information, are:
This is the digital magazine I wrote an article for in the first year we arrived in France, the link is here if you are interested to read it. My French entrée article
The UK.Gov website, living in France
Facebook also has a number of useful groups: strictly legal France, expats living in France and strictly santé France
What a difference
What a difference a day makes. We needed to be in Chatillon-sur-Seine by 9am this morning, as we had our annual check-ups at the dentist. It was blowing a gale at home, so we wanted to leave plenty of time to make the 30 minute journey. We’d literally gone from a vivid blue sky the day before to a murky wet grey day, with the wind ‘blowing a hooley’.
We looked at the forecast and it appeared that we were in the middle of a swirling front, moving east across Europe. Winds were up to 60km/hour.
Our journey was thankfully without any obstacles, and we arrived in plenty of time to settle ourselves down in readiness for the dentists chair.
I think neither of us relish the visit to the dentist, however I’m pleased to say all was well and we were soon finished and heading off to the Brico marché to pick up a couple of bits.
As we got back in the car, I mentioned to Brian that I felt we needed to do something else on this rather gloomy day to make it a bit more cheery. He suggested we went for lunch at the little café/brasserie in Bar-sur-Seine. So we made our way back towards Bar. We got there about 11.30, ordered some drinks and mentioned that we wanted to eat lunch today. It was a good job we arrived early and booked our table, as by about 12.10 the place had gone from just us, to a bustling restaurant full of hungry people, chatting about their day.
It was a delicious end to our morning.
Bare
We woke to vibrant blue skies on Sunday morning. The tree was looking very stately, airing its bare branches in the winter sun.
On a little stroll around the garden, considering what winter pruning jobs need to be done, I spotted a lone snowdrop poking its head out, also enjoying some winter sun. Seeing the first flowers of the year coming into bloom is so delightful.
It feels very early to see the plants and flowers budding, but it has been remarkably warm this last few weeks. I think we are in for a cold spell now though, let’s hope it doesn’t catch all the little early buds out.
Stepped up
By the time I’d tidied up the breakfast things, and popped some washing on, Brian had pretty much finished the wall off, and it was looking excellent. We know now though that he will need to fit a light on the stairs.
He has made a really good job cutting around the steps, and it’s a pretty good fit.
This afternoon he has been tidying up the door, ready to fit it later this week.
Boards
Brian didn’t take much encouragement to get back out in the atelier working on boarding up the stairs, I think he’s really enjoying his woodworking again.
The challenge is fitting the panels around each of the steps, which is definitely stopping him from finishing as fast as he would want. He is taking his time though, and making a really good job. I’m so looking forward to getting the atelier working again, I’ve got lots of different projects I’d like to get started, but with these jobs it’s always worth waiting for.
