City delights

Before leaving Besançon this morning we wanted to see some of the old part of the city. We first headed towards place Victor Hugo, where the house he was born in stands. The house has mostly been modernised since then, and converted into a small, but insightful interactive museum about his life, but there are still parts of it that give a peek into how it once would have looked. The receptionist was full of energy, and very keen for us to learn as much as we could about his achievements and beliefs. We only scratched the surface on our visit, but will definitely be delving into some more history about him. I’m wondering if a film was ever made of his life.

Just along from his house is the site of an old Roman theatre. You need a bit of imagination for it, and what is there is quite at odds with the surrounding architecture. They have created a small park on the site, I would imagine it’s a beautiful, cool place to rest on a summers day.

Our walk took us up through the Roman ‘Porte noir’, built around 175 AD to celebrate the emperor Marcus Aurelius, then into the cathedral, which unveiled its very own little treasures.

Altar image copyright Christophe Finot

The first thing that strikes you, high up on the wall and looking somewhat out of place, is an Astronomical Clock which apparently has a very complex mechanism that operates 4 clock faces found all around the cathedral. The grand, stained glass windows provide a rich backdrop to the stark stone walls, along the side of which is the only French example of a circular altar, carved out of white marble. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a circular altar before. Towards the front of the church is a painting of ‘The Virgin of the Saints’, painted in 1512 by Fra Bartolomeo. It’s rather exquisite, and such an unexpected work of renaissance art to discover.

Nightcap

We arrived back at the Hôtel de Paris after a wonderful meal at restaurant LÔ, in need of a cup of tea before bed. We hadn’t packed our travel kettle as we had assumed the hotel would have tea facilities in the room, but we were quite wrong.

Not to be defeated though we asked the receptionist for two cups and a pot of hot water, which they promptly sorted for us. No need to ask for tea bags, as I always make sure we travel with our own, I do like my cup of tea.

The lift was already waiting, as someone had just called it. We joined the man in the lift who was carrying two pizzas to his room. He had pressed the second floor, but we were stopping at the first, so Brian pressed the appropriate button. We made some small talk with the French chap and then said our bonsoir’s as we got out.

Our room is at the far end of the corridor, and a turn to the right. It’s always nice to be at the quieter end of a hotel, so we didn’t mind the walk.

As we reached our door, we were perplexed to find a door sign for 215, whereas our room was 119. Just as we realised, a slightly out of breath Frenchman with two pizzas turned the corner, “C’est the deuxième étage!”. We all laughed, as Brian and I set off back to the elevator. For some reason the elevator must have gone to the second floor first, which we hadn’t expected. We would have felt quite silly, except it was clear that the French chap had done the same thing, before realising and rushing back before his pizzas got any colder.

We were soon back in our room and enjoying a delicious cup of mint tea.

Ramped up

Some friends had mentioned that Besançon is a pretty, little city, and maybe worth a visit on our way back from the Jura. Although it’s only 2½ hours from our home, once I’d started to research it, I felt it might be worth having a stopover. So we booked a night at the Hôtel de Paris, in the centre of town, and planned our little jaunt.

One of the places that looked like a ‘must visit’ was Besançon’s Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology, which was originally founded in 1694, and apparently has the oldest public art collection in France. Silly not to go! For comparison, The Louvre was opened in 1793, almost a 100 years later.

The construction of the museum’s new site began in 1967 and was finished in 1970. The internal structure of the museum has been left as rough, unfinished concrete, with the wooden shuttering, used to form the walls, still visible in its surface. Black ceramic tiles are used for the floors. The lighting is a mix of natural and artificial, which works well with the various art pieces.

The visit starts with the archeology, with some interesting pieces that have been found in the local area, or donated for display from other collections.

The various exhibits are cleverly split into their own spaces, even though the museum is essentially one vast open building. It’s a bit like when you go round IKEA, it just flows well.

Once we’d completed the ground floor, we followed the central spiral of ramps up through the spine of the museum, viewing each set of works as they unfurled on each of the floors. Often not realising we were ascending, as we viewed the exhibits displayed along the wide ramps.

With works by Bronzino, Renoir, Rodin and Pompon, there are some beautiful masterpieces to be enjoyed, all set in a glorious and carefully considered space. Well worth a look in if you are visiting the area.

Rally round

Just before our walk around the lake, as we were changing into our walking boots at the car park, a couple of noisy cars whizzed past. As we looked up, we noticed they were all stickered up and appeared like they were competing in a rally. Minutes later three more whizzed by. They were obviously having fun. Anyway, we set off on our walk.

When we returned, we changed our boots and decided to drive back around to the other side of the lake, and look for somewhere to stop for a little picnic. We found a nice quiet spot with a picnic bench at the other end of the lake, well, we thought we had. Just as we settled in to our picnic a car pulled up, and three people jumped out with long lensed cameras, chattering away to each other. I then noticed the rally cars starting to arrive on the other side of the bridge. We realised we were sitting right opposite a checkpoint.

For the next half an hour, the cars rolled in and roared off, well some of them roared and some of them spluttered.

They were a real mixture and great fun to watch. Some were definitely more up for the competition than others.

Winter sun

Today, having had a big hike yesterday, we decided we’d drive to a nearby lake and do a low level walk. The tourist office has suggested we visit Port Titi, which was once a fishing village on the lake.

We started in Oye-et-Pallet, a small village at the top of the lake. The early part of the walk took us through pastures and up into the woods.

It was a well defined path, and made for some easy walking, which was quite welcome.

Occasionally the path would open up with amazing views across the lake. There is actually a hike that takes you all around the lake – about 20km – but today we plumped for the shorter 6½ km circular walk.

As we turned toward the lakeside we took a short detour to Port Titi. It was a small village of old painted buildings, some in bright, cheery colours, whilst others looked a little more rustic. We think it is now most likely used as summer residences.

The village was very tranquil, and we took time to just sit and enjoy the views and the lapping of the waters edge. It was a lovely moment, probably quite different we thought to the hustle and bustle of the summer months.

The last part of the walk led us to a beautifully made footbridge, that took us around a wetland area which was full of water birds: moor hens, coots, grebes to name a few. It was delightful watching them playing and chatting in the winter sun, calling to each other, and maybe saying ‘Look at those humans walking by in the winter sun’.

The making of Mont d’Or

With its snow capped mountains and beautiful meadows, the Jura is of course perfect for cows, and the region is rightly famed for its rather delicious cheeses, such as Comté, morbier and Mont d’Or.

Mont d’Or is easily recognised by its spruce strap wrapping, which is the last process in its production. Before this happens the cheeses are crammed into wooden boxes and left to mature for a few weeks. This allows various natural moulds to form, along with a slightly velvety, mottled outer skin, and the familiar rippled top: all perfectly edible. Once the cheese is aged, the spruce strips are then boiled to soften them, before being strapped around the cheeses ready to be sold.

All the local cheeses are made with the milk of the local dairy cow: the Montbéliarde, sometimes known as the ‘Pied rouge des montagnes’, or the red foot of the mountains. This breed was apparently chosen for their rich, high fat milk, and their ability to cope with the high altitude variations in temperature.

Mont d’Or is a truly seasonal cheese, and is only made between the 15th August and 15th March, when the cows come down the mountain from their high summer pastures. We got to see the cheese making process at a ‘fruiterie’, or cheese producer, who also had an excellent museum of their family history of cheese making going back three generations.

Inside the museum there are short films on all the manufacturing stages of cheese, both ancient and modern, and also a short film on the family business, with a man projected onto a mesh screen between family photos and old cheese making machinery. It’s a very engaging way of getting the story across.

Mont d'or is a delicious soft scoop cheese, one of the few cheeses in France that needs to be served with a spoon. Across the country it is often eaten hot, by baking it in the oven in the box.

How to bake Mont d’Or Cheese: the way I do it.

Preheat the oven to 180/200°C

Remove the lid and pop the box into an ovenproof dish, or onto a baking tray.

Cut a few slits in the cheese and pop some thinly sliced garlic into the holes, along with some fresh thyme or rosemary, black pepper and a few tablespoons of white wine.

Then wrap it in tin foil, and bake for about 15–20 minutes.

Careful when you remove it, it’s very hot and drippy! make sure it’s melted and gooey, stir it up a bit, and serve with a crusty baguette, and you might as well eothe rest of the wine. Yummy.

1463m

We decided we’d have a little break from the bookshelves and take a short trip to an area of France we’d never visited before, the Jura mountains. We were heading for the small village of Métabief, about a 3½ hour drive from us. During the winter there are a few small ski resorts, like Metabief, which seem to do very well keeping a few pistes open for the skiers with very little snow. However, for us, we felt the conditions were more suited to doing some walking.

We’d visited the small, but very helpful, tourist office when we arrived and gained some useful local information. We then planned our walking route using our Outdooractive app. Once we were happy with our plan, we packed up a picnic, dressed up warm, and headed out for the top of le Mont d’Or.

We first needed the chairlift , which was going to take us part of the way up the mountain to Le Morond. I’m really not great on chairlifts, but Brian chatted to me all the way to keep me distracted, and we were soon at the top.

Once off the chairlift we got our bearings and headed away from the pistes, towards the trail which would take us to the summit of le Mont d’Or.

The trails are really well signposted, so we soon found the path and were heading up towards the peak, where we found ourselves touching the clouds.

The weather improved on the way down, and made way for some stunning views across the valley.

That’s scary!

If you visited last year, you may remember we had a pigeon nesting in our barn, which actually wasn’t a big problem, just a bit flappy at times. Ideally though we would prefer Mr & Mrs Pigeon would live somewhere else this year so, to try and discourage them from the barn, I made a couple of pigeon scarers, which I needed Brian to hang from the beams. When I explained this to him he said “Hmm, you do realise their old nesting spot is about 30 ft up, and my ladder is only about 10 ft high”. This was clearly a problem to overcome, but without letting his doubt bother me too much I went and found some drawing pins, thinking to myself ‘I know he’ll find a way’. I gave him the pins, and said I’d go and make some tea. That usually helps.

It wasn’t long before he came in, smiling and looking very pleased with himself, “I’ve done one, come and look”.

he showed me how he’d done it by doing the second one. He fixed the drawing pin, attached to the pigeon scarer, to a piece of sticky tape on the end of a pole.

He then climbed his ladder and swung the pin, stuck to the end of the pole, into the beam.

Hoorah, one glittering pigeon scarer in place. Now we just need to see if it works.

On the spirits again!

With 2 uprights and three shelves already cut, glued, planed and sanded, it was time for Brian to define the heights of the shelves.

The top of the cupboard isn’t perfectly level, so all the uprights need to be a little bit different in height. Because of this it is important that the shelves all work to a fixed level, not just a measure taken from the bottom of the uprights, it seems all very technical. So out came the trusty laser again to ensure a true level.

However, when Brian set the laser in place, and checked the height each side using a tape measure, he doubted the laser for a moment. Being as cautious as he is, he got his old school spirit level out to check the accuracy of the laser level.

Finally convinced, and all happy again that the laser was actually telling the truth, he marked up the shelf positions ready for the next stage.

Plane and simple

After Brian has used his lamelleuse to join the wood, and gone through the process of gluing and clamping, he then needs to clean up the finish.

Sometimes the old school tools are just as effective as the new ones. After Brian has joined two pieces of wood together, to get the flat finish he wants, he needs to simply plane the join to get a smooth surface.

He then sands the whole side, removing any marks or imperfections.

It’s wonderful what finish can be achieved.

It’s a slow process, but he’s completed 3 uprights and 2 shelves already.

It’s magic

This week we booked to visit the opticians in Troyes to order our new glasses. We’d already been into an Alain Affilou store to look at their ‘Magic‘ range of glasses whilst in Dijon, and we liked the way the tinted, magnetic clip-ons instantly change them into a pair of sunglasses. Convinced they were a good idea, we thought we’d go and see if we could find some we liked in Troyes.

What do you think, did we buy any of these?

The Affilou experience is very thorough, and we loved their talking mirror, that helps them measure and get the correct fitting for your face and eyes. I can’t wait to go and pick them up now.

I think Brian was a bit exhausted by the whole opticians thing by the time we came out so, before heading to MacArthur Glen for some retail therapy, we dropped off at a new Boulangerie that has opened near to the retail park. It was a great place for lunch, and a little sugar hit. We did share the rather large eclair.

Good prune

The day had started a bit grey and was a little damp and chilly, but I was keen to tidy up my Christmas bulb pots, and redo them with some spring bulbs. So I popped outside and enjoyed having a bit of a tidy up. I sorted out some hyacinths and mini daffodils for one of my old tureens, and repotted some more hyacinths in a pot to go in the hallway.

The day brightened as I worked, and I decided to start to clean up around an old sewing table I had positioned near the barn. It certainly looked neater when I’d finished. With that done, I thought I’d prune the rather unruly rose bush that greets you as you drive into the courtyard. As it’s raised, it creates a beautiful place to sit under in the summer. We position a bench under it and the branches of the bush produce lots of natural shade.

I’ve given it a really good prune, so fingers crossed it will flourish this year.

That’s the spirit

We decided the top of the cupboard we had bought, to become the base of the bookshelf, needed to be cleaned down of any old wax before we started. I’d given the cupboard a good clean when we’d bought it, but we both felt the top would benefit from a further clean. So before Brian got started today he used some fine wire wool and white spirit to take off the old layers of wax.

With that done, he moved on to marking up where the uprights for the shelves were going to go. Trusty laser at hand, he was soon confident that his marks were going to give him the precision he needed.

Originally we were only going to have three book units joined together, but when Brian brought his drawing together with the cupboard, it seemed only natural that it needed four.

Excusez moi!

For a while now we’ve wanted to buy a couple of fire extinguishers for the house. One to have on the landing by the guest rooms, and the other in the hallway on the ground floor. However we were finding it really difficult to make contact with the local fire safety firms. I called a couple of them and left messages and also emailed, but never a response. So the other week, when we’d stopped off for a coffee before heading home after collecting the wood for the library, I saw one of the fire companies vans in the parking lot. He was about to drive off, so I quickly said to Brian “look there’s a fire safety company, let’s go and talk to him about getting a couple of extinguishers”. These sort of moments always appear way easier than they are, but Brian agreed and followed me as I jogged across the car park shouting, “Bonjour monsieur, excusez moi”. He stopped and turned, looking a little quizzical, and probably thinking to himself ‘who is this crazy woman, trying to get my attention?’.

The conversation started with some difficulty, as I wasn’t really prepared, but luckily Brian came to my help, and for once I was glad he butted in with his way more eloquent French than mine, explaining to the man who we were, and what we think we needed. After a bit of toing-and-froing we seemed to have communicated well, and we all went away very happy, as he’d arranged to visit us on Monday to view our property and discuss exactly what we needed.

As promised he visited as arranged, and we are now the very proud owners of two shiny, red fire extinguishers. We have agreed he will be back next January to service them for us.

Two become one

We’ve both been waiting a rather long while for the proper start of Brian building the bibliothèque shelves. There’s been a lot of stages to go through, a lot of talk, and a lot of planning, but this morning Brian said to me “Today I will start cutting the wood for the shelves”. I think that was a relief for both of us.

I know it’s a really big thing for him, because he’s already put so much thought and work into making sure it goes right, but actually starting to chop the wood is the point of no return for him and it makes it feel more real. My only tip was to not rush anything, and use that well used motto that dad taught us many moons ago - measure twice, cut once.

He chose the piece he wanted to start with and marked it up so that he knew where it was going to be used. He has a rather complex diagram to work to, and I know there is little wood that won’t get used for something.

I noticed, he has printed the diagram and put it on the wall in the workshop. That’s very organised for him.

He carried the first piece of wood out to his workshop and set about cutting it to the approximate length.

Then it was time to use the new jointing tool: his biscuit cutter. He carefully marked the two planks and set about cutting the holes for the biscuits. I was quite intrigued on how this was all going to work.

I could soon see how simple it was, and how it was all going to piece together. It was just a case of applying glue to the surfaces and clamping it. Well, that sounds simple, but there was a lot of clamps needed, and a very steady process of pressure, to ensure the pieces fitted perfectly together.

All done, two become one. This is the first upright for the shelves glued together, and clamped tightly. Quite a time consuming job, but a great piece of carpentry, and very accurate.

Now only 9 more uprights and 16 shelves to fix together and he can start making it into a book shelf.

Biscuit jointer

Today is an important one for moving the bookshelves forward, it’s the day Brian is hoping his new ‘biscuit jointer’ will arrive. For now though he is checking all his measurements to ensure they are correct, which is easier now the cupboard is in its final position.

Whilst that was happening I decided the sunny, if somewhat cold, weather was just right to start the year in the garden, doing some much needed pruning.

The roses were top of the list, but the lavender also needed work. It’s been a bit of a wet winter, and the pruning that should have happened at the end of last year has had to be carried over to now. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than leaving everything to outgrow itself.

We popped in for a welcome cup of tea, and as we did the bell was rung by the delivery man. This could only mean one thing!

Brian unpacked his new jointer, and gave it a check over. Then he proceeded to read the instructions carefully. Precision is important with this tool which is why he bought a better one online than the one that was available locally. So making sure he knows how to use it properly is essential. However, I think he’s quite impatient to give it a go, which should be tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the pruning for me.

Made to measure

With the walls now painted, Brian spent yesterday afternoon cutting and staining a spacer, so that we could push the cupboard into the corner, and that it would fit perfectly without any gaps between the cupboard and the wall.

He did this, by first cutting a piece of wood just wide enough to fit. He needed to ensure it was actually the right shape, because, of course, the cupboard is old and a bit twisted, and the wall is not perfectly straight. Things never are.

Once he knew it fitted, he stained it with a couple of different stains he had to achieve the right colour, then waxed it, before attaching it to the cupboard and pushing it into place.

Made to measure.

First coat

It was a little brisk this morning when we woke, the moon was hanging low in the sky, with the frost looking chilly on the garden and the vines behind the swimming pool.

By the time we had drunk our tea, the moon had tucked himself away for another day, and the sun was up, displaying a beautiful blue sky.

I would have loved to have been gardening, but that needed to wait, I’d committed to painting the walls in the library today. The painting needs to happen so that Brian can progress the bookshelves, which we are both keen for him to get started on. So the painting began. We have chosen Joa’s white by Farrow and Ball. It’s a warm natural colour, which is going to complement the oak perfectly, and help create a cosy environment for our library.

I used my trusty, teflon roller to make light work of the big areas, while Brian followed behind filling in the corners and edges.

First coat on, and it’s looking really good. Farrow and Ball paints have such great coverage, and apply really well, that’s why I love using them. They may be a bit more expensive, but in my view it’s well worth it. I will apply a second coat, as there are a few thinner patches, but this won’t take much, and I will do this at some point over the next couple of days.

A little difference

The stairwell was showing a few scuff marks and areas of wear from the last couple of years. It has been two years since we decorated it. Conscious that we will shortly soon be welcoming guests back to our b&b, we decided to touch up the areas which needed some attention.

It’s surprising how just a little bit of care can make a real difference, it’s feeling fresh and ready to greet our guests again. I love the thought of having guests back really soon.

Out of shape

The oak cupboard that we bought some time ago for the library is in need of a few repairs. The first one that needs looking at is the realignment of the oak planks on the top. This is where Brian will attach the bookshelves, so he needs a flatter base to work on.

First of all he measured to get the right spots for the screws that would be used, then he drilled them all out. Oak is very tough, and Brian always pre-drills it to make sure the screws go all the way in.

His new drill is coming in very handy now, it has way more power and he’s really happy with how long the batteries last. It seems to go for hours, in fact days.

After screwing the planks down he is left with a neat little hole that he’ll plug later. One small job done, and a nice flat surface to work on. This will make building the bookcase a little bit easier.