Autumn has arrived

Rained over the weekend so we spent Saturday afternoon visiting the shops. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea. All the summer things – outdoor furniture, pool toys, sandals and sunhats are being put away . Now we are seeing wellies, camouflage gear, guns and hunting knives. All the paraphernalia for bottling wine and making jams and preserving summer produce are taking over. At the hardware stores there are ranges of axes and log splitters and chainsaws for all that firewood and pruning of trees. 

Only managed one vide grenier marché in the rain on Sunday, but did find a lovely canteen of french silverplate cutlery for ourselves. It’s a setting for 12, but in typical french fashion they don’t include knives in their sets. So we have still to search for a set of modern knives to suit. It’s never straightforward.

They don't trust us with knives ??

Needed carpet for our staircase – simple you would think. No, the french don’t do much carpet and when they do it’s badly layed without underfelt (so we are told). So  managed to find an englishman from the Correze who travelled around 200kms to come to our house to quote. Had to give him the job after that, and included carpeting the upstairs sitting room as an afterthought, as it’s the warmest of our three sitting rooms and will make an ideal winter retreat.

Which brings me to firewood. After much research online and questioning our friends here, we decided we needed 5 cubic metres of oak cut to 33cm lengths to fit our fireplace. So on Monday morning madame Cambon arrived in her petit camion (little tipper truck) and dropped the lot in our driveway. Even the trucks and graders on the roadworks tend to be driven by women here. Luckily it had stopped raining for the morning so we spent a large part of it stacking firewood in our hangar. Our backs are telling us not to repeat that again soon.

Oh dear !

We're getting there

Done !!!

Tried another restaurant in Ste Foy for lunch – research for our visitors, I swear. Le Huit (No. 8) serves a very generous five course lunch with bread and coffee for €13.00 (AUD 19.00) each. We started with a white bean and tomato soup served in a large tureen so that we could help ourselves to more if we wished (we did). The entree was a tomato stuffed with fresh aubergine, then a steak and vegetables followed by a choice of cheeses. Then to finish a dessert of fresh berries and mousse. We look forward to their autumn menus with interest.

And the local rugby season is about to start. Oh joy ! We met a woman at a lunch (as you do here) who’s husband is also very keen on rugby, and he phoned Graham this week to invite him along to the first match of the season, and to explain the benefits of joining the local club. Apparently, in exchange for your membership fee you get free entry to all the local games (normally €11.00) and you get to attend the 3 course dinner at the club house after every game !!! Naturally Graham has accepted the kind invitation and will be supporting the local team at the game every Sunday afternoon.

The vendage (grape harvest) begins at the end of the month so there are sales of wine everywhere as producers try to make storage room for the next vintage. Our cellar is growing slowly.

We buy the boxes from a man at the marchés. We presume he makes them for the chateaux...

So much better than cardboard and only $2




à bientôt mes amis