Palais des Beaux-Arts

Whilst in Lille we visited the Palais des Beaux-Arts, set in a gorgeous building in the centre of Lille. It is dedicated to fine art, modern art, and antiquities. It was one of the first museums in France — built by Napoleon I in the early 19th century as part of the popularisation of art.

We both enjoy the beauty of art museums, and this municipal museum did not disappoint. We headed here to visit the temporary exhibition of the works of Raphael (1483-1520).

The Raphael exhibition, with its priceless collection of drawings — revealed for the first time to the public in its entirety – certainly helped feed the soul. The presentation of the 40 drawings, some double-sided, which were creatively displayed in their own space, is being supplemented by special loans from the Louvre Museum, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Royal Collection Trust, the National Gallery in London, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid — so quite a collection.

It was a delight to get so up-close to the sketches, paintings and frescoes. To view the details and colours, and witness how the paintings developed from the original sketches to their final versions. It was a very rare opportunity to get such a rounded view of his works.

We then visited the exhibition of the ‘town plans of Vauban’, which are situated on a whole floor dedicated to the many 3D constructions of strategic towns along the French north and eastern borders.

Vauban was a French military engineer who worked under Louis XIV. He is considered one of the greatest engineers of his time, and perhaps the most important in military history. It was fascinating viewing his models, and his ideas for architectural defences, that use the natural features of the landscape as their base.

It was these relief plans that encouraged the town of Lille to renovate the museum building at the beginning of the 1990’s.

We’d heard about the plans existence, so it was really pleasing to get the opportunity to see so many of them together in one place.

Lille by night

If Lille is beautiful by day, it’s spectacular by night. They dress the city so beautifully, from the glittering lights of the vintage chenille ride at the fun fair…

…to the glorious spill of colour on the spectacular architecture surrounding the squares, It’s a feast for the eye and the soul.

It really was, in every way, a warming city to visit just before Christmas.

Eating out

Our two nights eating out in Lille couldn’t have been more different. For the first evening we chose a typical, cosy bar/restaurant, with all the feel of a place that’s been serving patrons for longer than most people can remember.

We arrived early, but it was soon full, and brimming with conversation and laughter. When we received our aperitif, we realised why. The vin chaud was served with a shot of Amaretto, let’s just say it was ‘very warming’ start to the evening.

But if the starting drinks seemed a lot, the food that followed was definitely on the hearty side too. We ordered a couple of sharing platters to start. Followed by a variation of pies, tartiflette, crepes and meat, but most definitely everything included the local cheese — Maroilles.

The second evening was a more contemporary choice, and started with a glass at the downstairs cocktail bar. A great way to start our evening.

Then we walked upstairs to the restaurant, which revealed the rest of the warehouse environment.

It was an interesting layout, with the softened music of the cocktail bars DJ filtering up into the restaurant area.

The food was also quite different, but no less hearty than the night before.

The only question was, ‘should we pop down to the bar to finish?´.

Maybe another time.

Weekend in Lille

We’ve headed up to Lille, in northern France, to meet up with friends for some Christmas market shopping. We’ve never been here before, but already I can say it’s certainly a city we would revisit. It’s absolutely beautiful this time of year, with all the Christmas lights and greenery decorating the buildings and windows, and I would definitely be keen to see it at other times of the year, to enjoy some of the outside spaces.

There’s a huge ferris wheel in the main square. Not something I’d want to go on, but it looks like you’d get a great view from the top, if you have a stomach for heights.

The Christmas market was in Place Rihour, in the centre of the old town. There were lots of stalls, selling everything from vin chaud (mulled wine) to four foot high painted soldiers, in the style of the nutcracker.

It’s also definitely the place to buy a nativity scene, or snap up an addition to one you may already have.

All really enjoyable and very festive.

Christmas from time gone by

All our regular followers will know that each year we make our Christmas cards, often including quite a lot of handicrafts. This year though we had an idea spring to us, whilst out at a flea market, that was a little bit different. We came across some lovely Christmas and New Years cards from years gone by. The stall owner was selling them because they were pretty, but we liked them also because they had seasonal greetings written on the back. ‘What a lovely idea’ we both agreed, ‘to send the little messages on a second journey’.

And so we went about buying all the seasonal cards we could, some dating back to the 1940’s. Then we attached them to cards using corner tabs, so that everyone that received one could take them out and read the old messages — well they need to translate them first.

They were all really beautiful nostalgic designs.

Dinner with friends

Some friends were going on a little trip, and we agreed to feed their cats for them. It wasn’t a huge ask, but on their return they wanted to cook for us as a thank you, and even better for us, they were bringing the food to our house so we didn’t need to drive to them. How thoughtful.

It was only fair then to start with a beautiful bottle of Réaut — Émeraude. Such a bright champagne with peach and honey flavours.

Starter was a rather tasty mushroom soup… which is a real favourite of mine.

…and main was a super yummy beef casserole, warming and very seasonal.

And the award for…

We recently visited a little Christmas market, with all the amazing crafts and foods that we’ve come to expect from our local artisans, but there’s one aspect of these events that often goes unsung, and that’s the efforts the organisers put in. And I have to say, if there was an award for creativity it would go to the ‘pallet snowman’ who proudly greeted us as we entered.

They’re always so clever with what they have to hand.

I love all this creativity, sometimes the simple things make all the difference.

Christmas ambience

Now we have put the Christmas tree up, it’s time to add all the little details, that help to make the whole house festive.

Tiny lights, little figurines and a beautifully wrapped present or two all help to add warmth and colour to the rooms.

Mustn’t forget the reason for Christmas. I have started collecting a nativity display by a celebrated, and long running, pottery in southern France. It’s lovely being able to collect a new figure to add to my display.

And, of course, more lights. I think there can never be too many lights.

Even just dangling lights over picture frames adds a lovely glow and sparkle. It’s looking gorgeous.

Mesmerising

In our upstairs bathroom, we have a large velux window which is lovely to have open during the summer evenings when you’re taking a bath, and the house martins dart along the roof. I’m sure they challenge each other on who is brave enough to fly in through the gap of the window.

However, in winter it takes on another character altogether, and in the icy mornings becomes a feathery sheet of icy fronds.

Nature is such a beautiful thing, it makes a pleasant distraction from the mundanity of brushing my teeth.

Friends

Near to where we buy our Christmas trees there is a little yard outside an empty house, which is the perfect playspace for an unusual group of friends.

We’ve often seen the goats there, climbing the walls and tyres left in the yard, but this year they have some guests, a couple of lively geese and four chickens.

They put a smile on my face every time we go past them. This little goat was particularly cheeky. I think he was saying ‘What on the earth are those waddling geese making such a racquet about!’

They are such darlings.

Local Christmas market

It was our local Christmas market last weekend, which took place in the hall that usually houses the Friday market in Bar-sur-Seine. It was such a beautiful start to the festive period, with lots of local artisans displaying their wares.

I love finding little unique gifts, and treats, both for our friends and us.

Some of the stall holders put so much effort into their little Christmas gifts. From the making of them to their wrapping, they’re all made with such care. After finding a few lovely things we bought two pistachio cookies, to take home and enjoy with a nice hot cup of Christmas tea.

Christmas Post

Surprisingly this year, we are well ahead with organising our Christmas post. This morning we made a visit to the post office to get our stamps for some of our seasonal card postings. Whilst there I noticed a lovely stack of gift postage boxes. What a beautiful idea, so much more exciting than receiving a flat, white pack. It’s a shame we’ve already packaged ours up. I need to remember these for next year.

Then as I looked the other way, i saw the most wonderful thing, a post box just for letters to Father Christmas, and its slot perfectly at the height for little people. I wonder if anyone would notice if I popped one in there?

I do love France.

Deck the halls

When we picked up the tree we also picked up some fir branches. The lady at the yard gives them away free, as they end up with so many of them, and I always take as many as I can fit in the car with the tree. This year I thought it would be nice to use the bigger branches to dress the front door.

So Brian got his ladder out, cut some wire into strips, and set about tying the branches to the rose over the door.

Four branches seemed to be what we needed to create an arch that reached right over. Then it was time to cover it in lights, and voila, a perfect door decoration.

Magical.

Recyclage ♻️

Earlier this year our village joined the growing trend of having large, communal waste containers installed. The idea is to reduce the cost of collecting bins, and to encourage greater levels of recycling. I must admit I had my doubts. People don’t like change, and worse still they don’t like it when it means more effort, but it’s been way better than I had imagined. After a few times of finding the bins full, and having to return with our rubbish, they seem to have gotten the hang of emptying them more frequently now, and it’s a much better experience.

According to the six monthly news letters we receive in the post it’s also having a positive effect on recycling, so hoorah for that. I can’t wait though for the planting to grow and conceal them from the road, then all we will see are the vineyards again. Although I have to add our village does keep the area clean and litter free.

Advent tea

We were given a tea advent calendar this year, what a perfect gift for tea lovers like us.

We’ve got 24 different teas to try all with a very Christmas flavourings such as orange and cinnamon, grapefruit and ginger, cardamom, The first one was called ‘baiser sucré’ , it was deliciously warming. An ideal Christmas drink to enjoy whilst decorating our tree.

There’s two sachets in each day, so plenty to share when we have visitors pop in and they’d like to try one. I probably need to get some mince pies made so I have something to go with them.

Christmas sapin

What better way to end our day than to decorate our Christmas tree.

After a bit of turning it this way and that we eventually found what we both felt was the best position. I started to unwrap all our very delicate glass ornaments, all carrying a little memory of when we’d bought, made or were given them. I love this moment, remembering all our beautiful Christmases of previous years, and delighting on our plans for this year, that will bring all those joyful little moments.

It’s lights first though, then we place all the decorations. It takes a little while, but nothing beats that moment when you turn the tree lights on…and the tree twinkles! Gorgeous.

It’s getting bigger

We popped back to Polisot this morning to buy our Christmas tree, I’m sure they are getting bigger every year.

We needed to cut about 30cm off the top to fit it in the salon, but it does mean we have a much fuller tree, which looked amazing once Brian had cut off the netting. I think a great choice, and I can’t wait to decorate it now, but we’ll do that later.

Sausage rolls

There’s nothing better than a good sausage roll at Christmas, I think even our French friends who have tried them have been pleasantly surprised. This year though Brian wanted to try for an even better sausage roll, and that meant some testing needed to be done.

We first mixed up two tiny batches each. Brian wanted his to be less firm, so he did one with a lot of breadcrumbs, and one with less breadcrumbs and Ras el hanout, to give it a zing. I thought I’d try out some chopped mushrooms, instead of breadcrumbs, and did mushroom and thyme and apple and herbs.

Then we made them up and popped them in the oven, with a little milk to seal and colour them.

25 minutes later we were ready for our tasting test. Brian had drawn a little plan of which one was which, so we carefully moved them to a wooden board in the same positions and then cut each in two.

What a fascinating little test it was. The breadcrumbs looked a bit funny in the meat, quite spotty, and they had removed all the moisture, making the roll quite dry, so the first one was out. The second one was much more interesting, although there were still a few breadcrumbs that had a similar effect to the first one, the Ras el hanout was a revelation. Next was my mushroom and thyme. These were deliciously moist, and had the softening effect that Brian was after. The thyme though was a bit too much. Lastly my apple and herbs. The less said about that one the better, it won’t be getting made again!

So the outcome was a resounding yes to mushrooms, with their softness and moisture, but they didn’t add much flavour, so we both agreed that mushrooms with a pinch of Ras el hanout was the way forward. They’ll definitely be gracing a few apéro’s this year.

Planters

I’d chosen some mauve heathers (caluna) for my window boxes along with some silver ragwort from our visit to the garden centre. I asked Brian to help me fetch the tired, and now rather dried up, summer plant displays in, so that we could replant them and cheer up our windowsills.

Brian set up a table with my plants, and the bag of slightly acidic soil that they needed.

I was soon lining the boxes, filling them with soil and bedding my new winter plants in.

I think my choice was good, just enough to make a softly coloured display at the front of the house. I was soon ready for Brian to put them back in place.

I think they look fabulous against the white stone walls of the house, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop as the months go on.

The stand off

Driving back from the market in Bar-sur-Seine on Friday we took a little detour to Polisot, a village not far from us, but as we entered it our progress was delayed by a large gaggle of geese. We waited patiently, not wanting to alarm them, but they didn’t seem to be in much of a rush to make way, so we had to creep forward to give them some incentive.

They certainly were a plump bunch, and I wasn’t certain whether they were supposed to be out and about, but they seemed happy enough.

Unfortunately though it meant the ‘sapin seller’ was closed for lunch. We’ll pop back another day.