Oooooo!

Ooooh! I've been playing around with fonts.

I admired Tina's new look

and she told me how to find the bit that changes the font.

So clever!

I've tried several and cant make up my mind which one I like...if any.

So I may just go back to the 'normal' one.

Thanks Connie and Angela for your helpful comments.

I've changed to this font.

It's much easier to read.

Lunch-time is sacred!

Last week, my husband, with a friend, went to one of the local Brico

stores. That's the French version of D.I.Y.

They were doing manly things, like gazing at Power tools, and weren't watching the time.

Suddenly, all the lights went out, and a voice announced that the store was closing,

right NOW, if you please.

A lady stood by the (locked) door, and asked,

'Don't the shops close for lunch in England?'
'Not at all' said our friend,'and it wont be long before
French shops stay open all through the day'
Look of horror.
'Mais NON! Impossible!'



Yes, it is the sacred 'heure de dejeuner', the lunch hour,
or rather, two hours in many cases. I admire the French for keeping this time
sacred. Business men meet for lunch in the local hotel
Others go home to eat the delicious three course lunch,
with wine, that their wives have spent most of the morning preparing.
School children have a three course lunch, with the menu
written out for every week.


Wit the advent of a Lidl store that stayed open all day (shock)
the two supermarkets promptly followed suit.
It is nice to pop in during the lunch hour,
as there is no one around except the odd English person!


You will however notice from the above photos
that shops do stay open later here, often till 7pm.
But no 24 hour opening.....yet.
The old ways move slowly.

Kedgeree

Until I was a teenager I had never tasted Kedgeree.

Then we were asked for breakfast by some friends,

after going to an early Holy Communion service at 8am.

I loved it, and since Sarah of

As Lilies Sewing was asking for breakfast recipes recently,

I thought I would share one of mine. (with thanks to Delia)

It is of course, a recipe that was very popular in Victorian times, when enormous breakfasts were the rule. Its origins are from the Raj in India,

and it is mostly made with Curry powder. I dont always add that.

Ingredients for 4;

Approx 700 g Smoked haddock fillets

110g Butter

Small onion chopped finely

3 hard boiled eggs

Long grain white rice

Chopped parsley

I tbsp lemon juice

Salt and pepper

(and 3/4 tsp curry powder if wished)

Place the haddock fillets in a pan and cover with 1 pint water. simmer gently till cooked, about 10 mins, no more.

Drain off the water, keeping it aside. Keep haddock in a dish covered with foil.

Melt 50 g of butter and soften the onion (Stir in curry powder if used)

Add the rice and 16 fl oz of the haddock cooking water.

Cook gently for 15 mins until the rice is tender.

Flake the fish, removing any skin, and when the rice is ready, remove from heat and

flake in the fish, hard boiled eggs, parsley ,lemon juice

and the rest of the butter.

Cover the pan with a tea towel and place back on the Low heat for 5 mins.

Put into a serving dish and enjoy.

We often have this as a supper dish....warm and comforting!

The case of the missing T

I'm doing a new cross stitch, an Alphabet sampler for a friend.

I bought the design from a cross stitch designer on the Internet. She has a lovely website with some very pretty charts.

However..........I didnt check the design before I began, and half way through the lower case letters I saw that there was no letter 't'! Not in the chart, nor on the example that was on the web site.

I'm not going to give her name, that wouldn't be nice. But I was a bit surprised that she didnt seem too worried when I e mailed her!

I fitted it in on the lower line, and had to balance it with a blob on the right of the line. I'll show you the rest soon.

Edit.........I've just checked her website, and the chart is still there, for sale!

Marmalade morning.

"But marmalade is tasty, if
It's very
Thickly
Spread."

(From one of my favourite A.A Milne poems, 'The King's Breakfast')

So this was what I have spent most of the day doing.

Recipes that say 'Remove the pith', should add..."and this will take you

at least an hour".

I have scraped and scrooged at my oranges, lemons and grapefruit

and finally got there, pithless. I am not one of those patient people who can then

spend another hour finely cutting the peel, so into

the Magi-mix it all went. Sorry.

Seville oranges dont exist in this part of France, which is surprising

when you think that Spain is the next country. so I make a

three fruit marmalade, and it is just as good.

Ten jars, and one little bowl!

The house smells deliciously of citron.

The Beauty of Maps

We watched a programme last night called 'The Beauty of Maps'.

Sadly, we had missed the two previous ones, and can only hope that

they will be shown again sometime.

The programme is a documentary extolling the visual appeal

and the beauty to be found in early examples of maps.

Above is a photo of the Klencke Atlas, the largest book in the world.

It is housed at the British Library and has not been shown previously.

It will be shown in the summer exhibition, which is all about maps.

Can you imagine a book this size?

It is 5' 9" tall, and 6' 3" wide! It takes six people to lift.

As it is 350 years old, it is kept apart , and

is rarely touched.

The illustrations are such a marvel, and I would

love to have had a closer look.

I wonder what Charles II thought when he was presented with this

by a group of Dutch merchants on the occasion of his restoration?

What have I done today?

This sounds a bit like one of those essays we had to write at school....'What I did on my holidays...'
I think it stems from sheer desperation in not having anything else remotely interesting to write about today.
So....first outing this morning was to our local hospital, where my husband was due to have a scan. That didnt take too long and we went back into the town to have coffee at our favourite Bar. A bar in France isnt necessarily all alcohol. They all have up to date coffee machines, and the smell of freshly ground coffee is always comforting, as is being greeted by our friendly Bar owner, who always asks after our health.


Then to the optician, where I handed in the glasses that I had sat on yesterday and asked if they could straighten them up. With just the flicker of a smile, the girl told me that 'it often happens like that'.


A short stop at the bakery...warm fresh bread, mmmm.
A slightly longer short stop at my favourite shop, Gerry Weber, (German clothes) where the sales are still on and one can gaze.


Then we drove home, picked up the mail from the box by the gate, and was delighted to find that my friend Jan had sent me her copy of Julia Child's book, My Life in France, to read. Having just seen the DVD I know I will enjoy this.
Now we've had delicious lentil and vegetable soup for lunch and later I shall stroll up the village to join my sewing group.
And , as my son was apt to write,...............
The End.

The Julias

A very kind friend lent us this DVD (Thank you Angela!).
Last night we finally had some time to sit and watch it, and became completely wrapped up in the story of the two women.


It is based on a true story of Julia Childs and Julie Powell.
Julie has a boring job in a call centre, but loves to cook for her husband, and takes a decision to cook all of Julia's recipes (524) in 365 days. She writes a blog about it, and finds that her life becomes interesting again. "Julia pulled me out of the depths of the ocean", she says.


It was fascinating to see how Meryl Streep played Julia, an American in France with time on her hands. Watching her cooing over French shopkeepers and conversing in a sort of shrieked Franglais was beautifully done. Cooking, and writing a book about French cuisine took over Julia's life, encouraged by her delightful husband.


To begin with it was slightly confusing to flip from one story to the other. My husband says he'd like to watch it all over again. I loved the film, but I would like the two women to have met, though as Julia would have been around 89 when Julie started her cookery blog, it would have been unlikely. But one day, I'd love to go to Massachusetts to see Julia's home!

Booksneeze review

.

Unto the hills is a daily devotional, written by Billy Graham. It was originally published in 1986, and in 2010 was brought back and republished by Thomas Nelson.

In twenty five years the world has of course changed, and one might expect this book to feel old fashioned. However it is still as alive now as it was then.

The book is divided into 365 readings, one for each day, and Billy Graham tells us that 'he has compiled some thoughts from more than fifty years as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus christ, in hopes of better equipping you as you live in Christ'.

The devotions are not just aimed at those seeking to find answers, but also to those who are already believers.

Billy Graham, both in his preaching and his writing, does not mince words. He gives his beliefs straight from the shoulder, based on the Word of God, and sometimes this makes for uncomfortable reading. He talks about families, he talks about forgiveness, he writes about suffering.

But throughout it all, Billy Graham giives us a glimpse of Heaven. It is a book that might draw one closer to Christ, helping us build our lives on Him, every day

I received this book free from the publisher through the Booksneeze book review programme. I was not required to write a positive review, and opinions expressed are my own.

Green tea

I read recently that a cup of Green tea every day

will help to protect one from Alzheimers disease. Apparently

scientists at the university of South Florida have been doing some research

with mice. (I have a vision of the mice daintily sipping green tea)

So far, the research isnt far enough developed to say whether a cup

of tea is really going to help. In fact, humans need a daily intake of much more

would be necessary to make any difference.

However, although I'm not a great tea drinker, I do enjoy a cup

of pale green tea in the afternoon. So, who knows,

I might develop my memory again and find all those things that are 'lost'.

Last of the Willows

How glad I am that I grew up in the age of the 'real'

Wind in the Willows, before there was any other version.

I learned to love the language

and the beautiful illustrations of E.H.Shephard.

Whilst the Disney version has helped to introduce

the story to children who might otherwise never

have experienced it, I cant help feeling a nostalgia

for the true version.

I cannot ever imagine the animals looking like this.

They become figures of fun, rather than

lovable little animals (who just happened to be able to talk....)

Oh dear.



The same has been done with A.A.Milne, which I find very hard.
In fact, I was told by one person, a young adult
who might have known better, that she hadnt realised
there were original books about Winnie the Pooh.
She thought that they had always been Disney characters.


I find that incredibly sad,
remembering the hours that my mother spent
reading to and with me.


Thanks to Fraise Lachrymose with whom we have shared
a week of tales and stories about
the riverbank.

Little green shoots

I had a good forage around the garden in the sun yesterday, and all of a sudden, Spring didnt feel too far away.


I love to see the first new growth of the bulbs. I found Daffodils, Crocus and Grape Hyacinth, all just peeking up out of the ground.


I knew how Mary Lennox felt, in The Secret Garden.

"Things are crowding up out of the earth," she ran on in a hurry. "And there are flowers uncurling and buds on everything and the green veil has covered nearly all the gray and the birds are in such a hurry about their nests for fear they may be too late that some of them are even fighting for places in the secret garden.

Now is the time to start looking forward to Spring, even on a day like today when it is white with frost in the early morning.

On Wednesday I shall be watching........

.......the charming, debonair Michel Roux, in his Television series 'Service'.

I have to say that I almost can't believe this programme is real. Michel takes eight young people, all jobless, and ranging from a graduate to an ASBO holder. His brief is to encourage good service in Britain, and to teach these eight how it's done. There is , so he tells us, only one British maitre d' in London.

With the equally delightful Fred, maitre d' at the Hilton , they battle through unlikely episodes where the trainees are apparently left to their own devices in running a restaurant , on their own, for an evening. This includes seating parties of people (at the wrong table), taking orders, bringing drinks, relaying meal orders to the kitchen, (and bringing them to the wrong table). The owners sob quietly in the background.

What has amazed us is the level of disrespect, even confrontation shown to Michel and other tutors. These youngsters, two of whom might win a scholarship to the Academy of Food and wine, seem not to realise what a chance they are being offered. They whine, they moan, they are rude and sulky. Michel is firm but always encouraging, and shows that he believes they can do it...but he takes no nonsense. One of the trainees has already been asked to leave.

What happened to good manners? If I were asked to work with someone of Michel's calibre, I would be in awe. There doesnt seem to be much awe left these days.

The riverbank

Today I have been invited to be a 'guest writer' on Mags blog, Fraise Lachrymose. She is running a week of posts on the Wind in the willows theme.

My post today is called 'Home sweet home'.

Wall hanging

They are not a brilliant photos, as they was taken with my daughter's telephone (still can't get over this amazing technology).

When we went to her Methodist Church in Bramhall, the first things we saw were these two glowing wall hangings, about 10 feet long, hanging behind the stage.

When I went up to have a good look at them, I saw that they were made up from 4" squares, each one with a cross on. The crosses were all quite different, some embroidered, some traced, some simply stuck on.

I spoke to one of the ladies who had been involved in the making of these, and she explained that every member took home a piece of fabric, and could do their own cross, using whatever medium they wished. They were then collected, sewn together in lines and backed. It took around two years to finish the project. They are kept on rollers and each week are unrolled and placed on the walls. In the first photo you can just catch a glimpse of the man who is rolling up the hanging. I had to ask him to wait a moment while we took the photo!

The hangings were so lovely and really reflected the passion this congregation has for the love of God.

If you look at the colours you will see that they represent a Rainbow.

It sent me home wishing that we could do something similar in our church here in Brittany.

We're off to the Riverbank next week!

Mags at Fraise Lachrymose has organised a

Wind in the willows event.

Several bloggers are going to write guest posts

on something connected to the story, one each day.

Then on 21st it will be 'open house for all to join in!

So do take a look from Sunday onwards,

and come to the riverbank if you would like to.
Click the link on my sidebar to find out more.

A win.

A little while ago I was very fortunate to win one of Heidi's giveaways.

I think that Heidi's blog was one of the first that I followed, and her sewing is inspirational.

She has two very interesting blogs, one about her sewing, and one about her home in Holland.

Well, in the post came this delightful scissor fob, made by Heidi, together with a beautiful card...and also a fat quarter of fabric...so kind.

I am starting a block for a friend's leaving quilt, and the green of the fabric was perfect to add to that block.

Thank you Heidi!

Award

I know....I said my Blog was award free now.

Don't think I'm not grateful to the kind people who

send these awards. It was always nice to feel appreciated.

But over the months, my sidebar got filled up,

and I had to stop.

However, just this once....

Frannie, a sweet young lady from Authentic Virtue has

awarded me a Stylish blogger award. Stylish is what I am not

most days. How sweet of her. Thank you Frannie!

Soup at no great cost.

This bag is specially for 'pot au feu', which is a typically French, and very economic dish.

The bag is full of vegetables and costs €2.35.(Lidl)

A good French housewife would place the vegetables in a big cauldron

with a piece of meat, beef maybe.

She'd cook it all for a long time, probably over a fire.

Then the liquid would be strained off for soup.

The next course would be the meat and vegetables together,

rather like a sort of casserole.

These are some of the vegetables...carrots (lots)

leeks, turnips, onions, half a cabbage, and

a dear little bag of bay leaf and 'herbes Provencale'.

The first time we tasted pot au feu was at a local village fete.

We had watched the cauldrons bubbling over fires throughout the

day, and weren't sure what would be coming out!

Believe me, it was delicious, but I just use the

vegetables to make gallons of soup.

Passing swiftly on....

Of course, on return, there was nothing in the cake tins.

So I set to and did a bit of baking...not too much

as we are very aware of high sugar levels. But some sultana buns, and a tray of Flapjacks made us both

feel that we were home again. the lovely smells of baking

filled the kitchen.

Flapjacks were my dear Mum's speciality, and

even now, my children say 'Not quite as good as Gran's , Mum!'

Easy recipe.

6oz hard margarine

5oz Demerera sugar

Lovely gloppy spoonful of golden syrup

12 oz Porridge oats

Melt the margarine in a saucepan, and add sugar.

Stir in the syrup.

Add the oats and mix very well.

Then press into a greased baking tray and cook at about 170 degrees.

When it begins to turn brown it should be fine.

Take out and cut into squares whilst it is still hot.

Smack hand of anyone who tries to steal a piece.

Golden syrup is very English, and I'm

not sure what you would replace it with if it's unavailable where you live.

I've since checked on Google and honey is sometimes used.

I said I never would.....

...put a photo on my blog.

But my husband took this of Angela and me.

The time on the camera is an hour in advance as it is set to French time.

It was just after a very nice breakfast,

(and just before I had put on anything to make my face look alive!)

Hey ho.

Holiday snaps.

Just a few pictures of our stay in England. Decorations through our daughter's house.
A pretty table set by grandaughter, ready for Christmas lunch.

Beautiful Bramhall Park in the snow.

The eyebrow Bridge in the Japanese Garden

at Tatton Park. You can see how icy it was. The whole

lake was frozen over.

The Fernery at Tatton Park, warm, moist air

encouraging the lush greenery. It was a

relief to get in to the warmth, away from the iciness

of outdoors.

What a beautiful place Tatton Park is.

I would love to go back in the Spring.

Village gifts

Our Commune has the charming habit of giving

some of its senior citizens a Christmas gift.

My husband has been the lucky recipient for the last two years,

but this year we thought with being away in UK , he wouldn't

be receiving anything.

However, this morning there was a knock on the door.

'Saw you were back', smiled Gabrielle,

and presented him with...no not the above photo,

but a very similar arrangement.

A beautifully arranged basket, containing cake,

chocolates, pate, wine and other goodies.

Unfortunately, before I could take a photo, he had
untied the bow, undone the cellophane wrapping,

and opened it all up!

Dulce domum

Here we are, back in our own 'Sweet Home'.

Just like Moley, we went round, looking at things, smelling the few blooms

in the garden, checking what was in the larder (fridge)

and having unpacked, we are now sitting quietly down, just enjoying

our return. We have been away a good three weeks,

seeing our family in Stockport, which has been lovely.

Later I have some photos to show you.

(image by Maggie Downer) A highlight of our travel home was the opportunity

to break our journey and stay the night with

Angela of Tracing Rainbows, and her husband.

This was such a treat. We have been corresponding for a couple

of years now, and to meet up, and find that Ang was just

who I expected (lovely, gracious and a wonderful hostess)

was very special indeed.

Travelling is tiring.

So I'm off to sit in my favourite arm chair with a book.

Technology ........

"Well", said the grandchildren admiringly,

"Technology Grandpa!"

I have to say that machines like this are a foreign language to me.

but for some time my husband has been thinking about buying

an e-reader, as his eyesight is not so good now.

We had looked at Kindles and at others, but

when we saw Son-in-law's I pad, it seemed to offer a whole lot of

other possibilities also.

The great thing is that the font is changeable

and can be made much larger, so easier to read.

E mail is available, and browsing too.

So....he who has up to now had very little interest

in computers, is suddenly up there in the front with the techies!

It'll make so much difference to him.

But...will the gardening get done??

Viennese concert

I think this is my very favourite programme to watch at New Year.

The New year's Eve concert from Vienna is romantic,

beautiful and an annual tradition since WW2.

Much of the music played is by the Strauss family, and the Vienna Philharmonic obviously enjoy playing these traditional works. Some years ago we were fortunate to spend a holiday in Vienna,

and went to the beautiful opera house for a couple of performances.

It is a magical city, and watching the concert

took us briefly back to a perfect holiday.