A Sunny Saturday Peeling Wallpaper

Isn’t peeling wallpaper FUN! The sound of the 2″ strips just ripping off the wall sends chills through my spine in anticipation of the wonder beneith. Shit. The room in question is the old dining room next to the Little Kitchen, the green and pale green and yellowed dirty white paisley pattern had finally worked it’s magic on our brains and Kelly started and I soon picked up the task as well. Scrape, pull, rip, climb, scrape, pull, rip, scrape, rip…on and on for hours and up and down on the ladders to get to some of the more inaccessible locations behind water pipes and bizarre electrical thing-a-majigs…brother. A beautiful Saturday like this set to waste with this awful task, what is wrong with us?! Furry just walks into the room, it’s floor coverred with thousands of 2″ X 2″ peices of ancient wallpaper and looks around, up and down at it as if to say, “Why did you screw up my purr-fectly good sitting room where I can vomit in peace under the lovely grey chairs?! Why?” Because we are DRIVEN you useless furball! Driven!
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We grow ever closer to having the bottom story of the olde place recoverred if not entirely refurbished…at least it looks better to US than it did, whether or not we have gotten the sequence right or not, well that is a question isn’t it? Who knows, maybe we’ll have to pull some of our cover-work down and fix a leak pipe or two, or rebuild the wall or…who knows? It’s an olde place, it’s been here longer than you dear reader, I and Kelly PLUS our two cats have been alive and I suspect it will do as well FAAAAR into the future. Once we sell the little house and get that money into our hot little worn out hands (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=130234244587&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=003 to see it and
MORE PICS AT http://flickr.com/photos/hnlute/ Go to SETS then click on DIX or go straight to the pictures of the house at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnlute/sets/72157605912040170/ )
the roof will be assessed once again and a brand new INSULATED one will be installed by SOMEONE ELSE! Then what? Well, we have a plan to build a veranda structure between the two wings in the form of one of the lovely iron ones common in Paris. All glass and arty-like. We like the one we had built for us in Suisun a few years ago so much we’d like to replicate it here in sunny and warm Lignieres. We shall see what time tells us.
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What I wonder is how the hell we are going to get HERE next spring what with all the airline cuts. Booking the journey ought to be a thrill that’s for sure, big bucks and few flights with many more stops. Shit!

Lyon

Well…why haven’t I written in the last week and a day? Been sick boopie, sick. How? What? Why? Well in reverse order the FOOD POISONING occured beginning a week ago last Thursday with a delicious sandwich of the usual ham, cheese, eggs, lettuces and mayonaise taken at the cafe adjacent to The Geant in Bourges. This lunch was made necessary as we were waiting to get the new front Michelin tires installed on the Avensis. Home we went afterwards and seemingly were ok and normal for the next 6 – 8 hours, then diarhea and cramping…awful, green nausea. Yes, durn it, it’s a common human ailment isn’t it? A left out of the fridge too long anything, a cold cut, a mishandled lettuce leaf, an unwashed tomato…doesn’t take much and those flora and fauna of our gut take offense at the new intruder. The result is more potty time in the next day or two then the problem slowly goes away. Well this time it stayed and grew worse when we went to the store on Friday and I bought 2 kilos (4.4lbs) of the most beautiful, small moules (mussels), labelled “France Normandy”, oh yes, a favorite of ours and cheap too at E2.90 a kilo…about 1.35 a lb. On ice, all shiny and upon close examination most were quite closed, a GOOD lot! Well home we went, Kelly washed and debearded the little suckers and I prepped the sauce, white wine, parsley, shallots, salt and pepper (garlic if you want). I put them in a large pot and poured the sauce over and brought them to steaming and cooked for about three minutes, just enough to insure they were all open, turned them off and pored the whole lot into a large crockery bowl. We ate like Kings of these little devils, wonderfully tender and sweet with the sauce. We ate about half of what we prepared and sopped up the sauce with chunks of baggette smeared with our local butter. Yum! All good, filled to the brim we cleaned up, put the remaining moules coverred into the fridge and retired to a movie in our upstairs office. Movie over, off to bed to read and fall asleep as is our way. 2 am I awake, now green, frog-colored and very, very aware of my less than well condition. Quickly I gather my wits, jump outa bed and run to the WC a few feet away…thank gawd! This over, back to bed to repeat at 2 – 3 hour intervals over the next 12 hrs. Not good. So much for Saturday except we ate the beloved moules for lunch via the microwave approach and repeated to the last little beast at dinner time, burp! Somewhere in all of these little delicious creatures I partook of one to several that were less than ok, either undercooked, a distinct possibility initially, or dead-on-delivery not to be eaten in the first place. No matter…now I was really sick and Kelly was just a bit green. Sunday was a day off of eating at all. Just sick. Then Monday…planning for the trip to Leon I was still planning trips to the WC about every 2 hrs. Not good. Yogurt, blessed yogurt to the rescue. I had now lost between 4 and 5 lbs and was fading fast. No appetite at all, chills and fever and the runs. Great. Here comes Tuesday, ate little, slept a lot and occassionally ran to the WC. Whewwww. Wednesday was a day of near recovery, not as tired, not hungry but the yogurt was good and 7 up helped ease the tummy green-ness that hung on so very well. We left Thursday and I was back to my old self again, hungry and happy. Brother…poisoned myself good that time, not just once either! Enough. Cook ’em longer boopie, maybe 5 minutes would be enough. Here’s a link for you re:preparation of mussels.
http://www.helpwithcooking.com/seafood-shellfish/how-to-cook-mussels.html
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Lyon is a wonderful city to visit though it’s approach from the south is industrial as all get out. Oil operations abound featuring long, black trains, the French Modern factory approach to urban planning rules the landscape. Once across the river though it becomes a lush, green garden on visual and gastronomic delights. Parking can/is a hasstle and though advertised as part of our one-star hotel’s (Alexandra Hotel http://www.hotelalexandra69002.fr/ ) amenities we decided to walk the short walk, pay the PAYANT machine it’s due and be done with it. Bonnie the Tom Tom GPS had gotten us to within a block of the hotel door and l’Viola! there was a space for us on the street! Amazing! So we unloaded our single bag with our 2 changes of clothes apiece and headed for the hotel. Once there 5 minutes later, we walked up one flight of stairs to the reception desk and signed in. Then off to our room on the 4th floor via ancient stone steps, 22 to each flight to account for the tall ceilings. Thank goodness for the single bag and few books. Once UP we openned the door to our suite in the clouds. Clean, newly painted grey and white with a view over the red roofs of Lyon. It was still early afternoon, about 3:30pm so we wanderred off thru Rue Victor Hugo a wonderful wide boulevard turned into shopping mall with stores of every kind and description. We spent the next while wandering the storefronts and sitting to watch the ever changing street scene. We headed generally north along the streets, taking our time headed towards the eventual goal of our dinner place L,Ourson Qui Boit at 7:30 when they were scheduled to open. Once found a lovely worker in the establishment informed us that they were full that night AND the next and since we had not made reservations we were out of luck. Durn it! Kelly had asked me too! So we lost our shot at the 16th most popular restaurant in Lyon by my not making a reservation. That teaches me! So we dejectedly turned about and walked back along the way we came looking for the nights meal along the way. Two miles later we arrived at our hotel once more and facing both the McDonalds (Nooooooooo!) across the street and the now pouring afternoon/early evening rain Kelly took another look at her map. A Chinese restaurant was nearby, in fact around the corner on Rue Franklin well…why not!? A small place, less than 20 seats and packed except for one booth which we occupied shortly. The food looked and smelled wonderful, a fusion of Vietnamese and Chinese then menu wasn’t so long as to be intimidating (you know those, we don’t go there anymore) but very interesting. We chose a veg, a chicken a beef dish with Cantonese Fried Rice and were soon greeted with the aromas we had been surrounded with coming from beautifully prepared and served dishes. We orderred two Tsing Tao chinese beers, delicious and ice cold too! Wonderful food by any measure, certainly the best Chinese we have had in France to date. It was so good we repeated the meal the next night!
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Trip Home – See image at top of the blog.
The way back was different. We decided to go north along the river to Macon (Mah_cahn) then over to Lignieres through whatever was there. So after a protracted leaving of Lyon through the back streets and alleyways past several open air marches (markets) we were on our way Saturday morning. The countryside of Burgundy was much as it is here in Lignieres, rolling, green hills and small farms, cattle, sheeps and a few goats. Beautiful verdant landscapes. Along the way we past a beautiful long barn, a half-timbered one from several centuries past with a checkerboard-like brick pattern evident. I wanted a picture so slowed down to find a place I could turn around in. Once about-faced I accelerated back the way we had just come and slowed as we past the barn scene looking for yet another place to turn around and park so I could take the picture I wanted. I slowly pulled first to the right off the roadway then turned toward a small road that presented itself across the main one and there was a spot to stop to get out and take the pictures I wanted. I turned slowly to the left and as I did I saw out of the corner of my eye a motion, a figure, a motorcycle coming over a rise in the road and through the shadow of the adjacent trees…oh my gawd, I cut him off! And I had, he was forced to make the descision to slide into me, steer around at speed or hit me. He chose the steering around but was faced with another car in the lane I had just vacated. He narrowly missed the oncoming car! Narrowly.
I sat there stunned that I had caused this entire scene and that nothing bad had happened. I stared at the rider as he slowed further down the road from where I had come just a minute or so ago. He accelerated back to me and turned around, I lowerred my window to appologize and tell him that I had lost him in the shaddow. “Desole, desole!” I said. This was a very close call for both of us, he just stared at me, then he nodded acceptance and drove away. I breathed a sigh of releif that I hadn’t killed him or someone else I didn’t even know. That’s how it happens with motorcycles. It’s the quick and the dead by the hand of someone driving a car unsafely, like myself in those few moments.

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Digging progress

Oops, arrived in New Zealand

Yes, I poked out of the sands of a beach on the south island and was NOT in China. Drank a fine Guinness Stout in a local pub and returned to my hole to turn right and head to China in a NEW Hole! Yes, another hole. I bissected the original pipe find and collaborated with the one coming from under my kitchen. A new spot. I took the 6 ft breaker bar and began the dig. We shall see if China reveals herself one day real soon now. We also read the notice given us by the Veolia man, it notes that we have ONE YEAR to complete this rerouting. Hmmmm.
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Else, tore into the doorway wall this morning to see if the material used on the right side was also used on the left side, one never knows in these ruins. It appears it is of the same construction and so now I’ll de-nude BOTH walls and the ceiling over the opening as well. The MUR (Wall) through which the doorway proceeds is some 24 inches thick of waddle and daub as they call it…basically mud and rocks (typical olde construction method) and the openning to the dining room is coverred with a very fragile layer of 1/2″ thick unglazed tiles of varying sizes. Interesting… yes, delicate… yes, rustic… yes. What’s to “NO” about? Well poopsie…if I shatter, break, chip, any of these fine tiles I will get to glue them back together as nowhere on this earth will you find ANYTHING like these except possibly buried behind some grass hut in outer Mongolia or maybe Botswana.
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Then I tore apart an old picture frame and remade it in a different size for a print we got when we were in Scotland some 15 years ago! It’s finally getting FRAMED in France! Amazing. Yhe whole IDEA of framing pictures in cut down frames from an early time period…seems nice, easy, cheap and ecological on some remote level. In reality it is a far more DIFFICULT thing to do as accuracy COUNTS and true 45 degree CUTS COUNT and I’m apparently not that capable as three of 4 joints are good…c- work, decent fit, small chips etc. and ONE joint is a friggin’ mess of out of angle cuts and chips the size of the frame itself. It’s NOT the saws I’m using either…it’s ME! I need more practice you say, sure I do…but there is little time left for practice, this IS the real world, measure twice = cut once (old adage) abd get on with it! I do…and I’ve cited the results. Shit! I have another sitting up in the grenier (attic) to tackle any day now that I want to feel inadequate.

#94 Sundai School in Chezal Benoit

#94
Not just ANY Sunday either! Chezal – Benoit (Che-sahl – Ben-Wha) was having it’s annual Brocante (junk sale) and mental health summit. You see Chezal – Benoiy is the home of a Mental Hospital and the sellers occupy the town right up to it’s gate. Too, many of the patients are present adding their own color and grunts to the event. L came to the Ruin at 9 am and while she made the huge green salad for the party we were attending afterwards at A&R’s, Kelly and I scrambled to both wake up from the party the afternoon and early evening of Saturday (yes we do these things serially it seems) (where 5 of us drank 7 bottles of the finest below 2 Euros sparkling wine and wine). I made Spinach Canneloni and it was very, very good if I do say so myself. Followed some hours later by a Pasta Povera with garlic, capers. It always works, a very simple dish that I’ve described in my blog before. That was Saturday’s food scene, Sunday afternoons at our friends A&R’s was an Asian-styled food fest. A and R had preped vegies galore, carrots, radishes, green and red bell peppers, onions, lemons and had various bottled sauces and condiments. I was put in charge by the Master Chef herself who provided me with the valued kitchen support I needed to create an asian feast. It was great creative fun and there was more than enough food at the end for A&R to have leftovers for two meals at least! I came up with Oyster Sauce Beef, Musselman Curry, Vietnamese Lemon Pork, Red Pepper Chicken, Chop Suey (YES!), and a couple of other ad hoc dishes thrown in for good measure. All over rice, thai rice noodles. Much wine was drank, as usual. The French couple from up the road (Chicken Farm) chatted amiably with all of us, in French of course…but we seemed to rise to the occassion. I had a bit of trouble understanding which isn’t unusual as the speed at which the French speak is, at times, intimidating. They also brought along their own product…goat cheeses from their heard of Goats, it was, without doubt, the FINEST goat cheese I have EVER enjoyed! The Ash coverred round loaf was spectacularly good. Wonderful light texture and a lemony aftertaste that just faded to the next bite. Anyway, we all enjoyed ourselves emmensly in A&R’s sunroom under ever darkening skies and eventually the late afternoon pouring rains. Here’s the link to the YouTube movie of the Brocante we enjoyed in the morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT6Ztt_Iz1o
What a lovely day, rain or not. Great fun with great people, tons of chat and laughs galore, Life hardly could be better than this.

Une Petite Francaise SVP

That’s all it really takes, a LITTLE French. Be polite, address all persons as vous, si vous plait is good all the time. CA VA! (How are you – to those with whom you have a standing friendship andhave been properly told that now we can be familiar) To which one replies Ca Va! back (I’m ok). Well today is Tuesday and our friend Don who is a retired language teacher is taking on our little groups need for French tutorage par groupe, oh lord, help him! After 6 years of visiting this lovely, genteel land our grasp of it’s language is abouton the level of a 2 year old (or less!). It’s NOT for lack of trying, we have many CD’s, this course and that course, have taken courses at the local tourist board til we drove them mad, and commuted one a week to Berkeley to bang French into our heads. Little sticks but what does is in the present tense almost always, NOTHING comes naturally. So today we will begin yet again to learn a bit of French for the sakes of the oh so friendly French folk in and about our village and environs. Sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsfV-ZL4rUo&NR=1
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The black paint job is through for now, now we must scrape off the over-painting on the glass of a million panels, oh boy. So I do a panel or two, scrape, scrape, brush, scrape and I soon tire of this and wander off and Kelly grabs the scraper and razor blade and goes to work on it. This will take a while. I want to get on with the cloth hanging but it takes laying out and pattern matching before it can be hung. It will be one very dramatic entrance to the old girl, the pattern is Japanesey black on a subtle gold in big swirly things that dance along edge to edge almost. The curtains are going to be a lighter gold with a little texture in them, the whole effect should be stunning…perhaps too stunning. No matter, as soon as this scraping activity is done we will have at it.
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I brought over my oil painting “bits” (a UK word meaning…things), brushes, media, linseed oil, tubes of paints, the whole bloody mess. When will I paint? I dunno, I never know…If I get inspiration I’m often unmotivated and if I’m unmotivated my inspiration fades and I’m back at square one again. It’s the opposite of procrastination where you should do something but you put it off. This takes less effort. Nonetheless the stuff is here, I have canvasses and we’ll see what time does.
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Back to the scrapings,
H

Another Day in a Lazy Paradise

Yawn…up at 6am, I looked out the window of the comp room where I slept last night to see a grey and cloudy sky. Oh well, off to the computer to read the emails, if any, and see what the weather sensors have detected overnight. It is a passion of mine, the weather is, I study the situation day by day trying to sort out the forecast for the next WHILE. Kelly’s knees are far more accurate than any local forecast we get from the TV.
Mine , however, are more personal and I have INSIDE information, don’t I? Today was not sunny, overcast and grey as could be all afternoon. We worked around the house this morning then in need of paint, nails and a few other hardware items we left at about 1:30pm bound for St. Amand’s Brico Marche. I needed potting soil, some exterior wood glue and some wall fasteners, Kelly needed paint. We found our items and found each other and proceeded to the checkout cashier. As it turned out she had inadvertly bought MAT paint so after the discovery at the car returned to the store to trade in the 2.5 liter carton of MAT for the more desirable Semi-gloss. She also bought the black glossy she wanted to finish the mullions of the waiting room exterior.
The whole works is spectacular.

The Donkey Faire

Monday 12 May, 2008
Today is the BIG DAY! The donkeys are coming, the donkeys are coming! I was up early to witness the arrivals, donkeys from everywhere in France in one’s, twos, tens, tied to rails in the Champ du Foire (Fair Field). Beautiful, noisy and a cause to celebrate Asses of the 4 legged variety. Our hope this year was that the weather would be nice instead of the storminess of last years version. Up early, at dawn, for no good reason (part of ageing) I looked out the comp rm window and the skies were clear. Whoopee! Even before dawn the trucks were lining up to deliver thier braying hoards onto the Champ (shaw-mp). I grabbed my trusty Nikon Coolpix S10 and set it to movie and left the house bound to see the beginnings of todays Big Event in Lignieres. The movies are in two parts, each about 5 minutes in length. Just click the links below.

The Donkey Faire Continued:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbBHfJCNu2U

Too big to upload? Who knows, I’ve tried three times now to no avail so just click the link and watch it on YouTube. Sorry.

After the 2nd video (about 11:30) I returned to the house to prepare for our late afternoon lunch for 10. My grand idea for this gathering was to have the group make thie own sandwiches. Well…that’s how I set the table up, you know…plates of onion rings, tomato slices, pre-cut bagettes, lettuce leaves etc. and a big salad. This was to be made easier by the addition of leftovers from the meal the night before at A&R’s place. Easy to do, fun outdoor-sy at our now long table with the additional length furnished by my library table which I just completed. Sure. Wine by the bottle was soon flowing among the gathered group and conversations went off like firecrackers in every direction. I thought I made to announcement re:making your own sandwiches, but the second the plate of meats (chicken and pork) were deliverred to te table the group swarmed on them like hungry wolves. What sandwiches? Oh well, best laid plans and all of that. Much wine was drunk, the Vouvray Sparkling was especially delicious and made for a festive occassion. The party moved indoors with the coming of the late afternoon rain and we raided the bar closet for samples of the many bottles. Great fun was had by all as usual, Our Little Supper Club.

A Week of Warm Sun…

It’s true! A whole bloody week with some sun everyday and not a drop of H2O to go with it! Yippee! We had grown quite tired of the constant grey skies and rain routine that seemed to go on and on weeks at a time. Suddenly it’s Real Springtime! Birds, swallows, pigeons, tits, nightingales in and out of our backyard feeding station all day long, wonderful!
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The Waiting Room project continues with Kelly painting the elaborate iron window frame with several coats of her own home-brewed color choice, looks nice. The small wall and the door still need the cloth covering and curtains are yet to be put up, but it is close, maybe this week. I opened up the wall at the entrance to the Dining Room, it was a constant wet source and the lower portion was soft, damaged and falling off of it’s own accord. It was, as expected, waddle and daub (rock and mud) covered by individual tiles of a light fired brick color, interesting as an artifact of much earlier times but not the wonderful STONE edifice we desired. I’ll do some wood mouldings around the doorway and cover it all up with a moisture barrier of some sort and a more modern equivalent of the horsehair plaster that someone used a century or two ago.
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Today and tomorrow are (today) Pentacost (Everything you EVER wanted to know about this celebration is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentacost ) and the Monday after, so what do you say you heathen, ok, ok, it’s The Donkey Faire in Lignieres! Two days of Merguez and frits, red wine, crowds, agricultural sights and sounds and donkey shit by the bagful! Terrific as long as the weather holds out. Last year it was not a nice day. Wet and sloppy, cold too boot. I have a short video of it on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qNxC0srBJo . Today Sunday is the Opening Day and Tomorrow is The Big Day. Difference? Dunno, but there’s LOTS of Donkeys arriving today, tomorrow they will already BE here and there’s more shit on the ground. It’s a wondrous thing to behold, donkeys and their keepers from all over France and a few from other European countries. They come to show them, buy them and sell them and all the gear that goes with. It’s a great rural France scene. Not to be missed.
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I built a Library Table this last week, used the Sapin pine panels for the lumber as I had downfall from the Waiting Room bookcase project of last week. The table was simple to build and came out quite well if I must say so myself. Not to be used in the library though, more as a utility table, another flat surface to fill with papers and tools and reading materials AND mostly as an adjunct to our outside table so we can accommodate more persons for summer lunches and dinners outside.
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We had dinner with our Scottish friends Danny and Wanda last night, she is a wonderful cook and I appreciate and invite to their table anytime. We sat outside amidst there sizeable garden which we toured before dinner. Row after neat row of every vegetable important to cooking, it is very impressive, Alice Waters would be proud. We drank more wine and nibbled then went inside to have one very fine meal of Roast Leg of Lamb, Scalloped Potatoes, Green Beans. a fine rich gravy from the pan drippings, a very fresh green salad with her special dressing (I MUST get that recipe) followed by a cheese course (It IS France after all!), and a lovely gelatine, mandarin orange with cream trifle as dessert. Wonderful all. We finished the night with scotches outside under a clear and dark, dark sky. A very easy and wonderful way to end the week. I’d be happy to pay for it!