25/04/2012 |
Chateaux & Vineyards...
Even busy property agents need a break from work from time to time and with this in mind we've just returned from a family week away in the Loire valley.
We set off at the beginning of the school holidays, last Saturday, to make the three hour journey north to the Loire, an area I last visited whilst still at school (a sobering thought for me as it was almost 30 years ago, where did all that time go?)
Approaching the Loire we first arrived at the charming town of Loches with its historic castle keep and walled city visible from miles around.
From there it was off to stay in Amboise for a few days to visit the royal chateau, the famous chateau and grounds at Chenonceaux and the magnificent Chambord with its 12000 acre estate to name but a few.
Between the chateau visits we managed to find a little time to visit a few of the local vineyards and enjoy some wine tastings.
The first vineyard we visited was a family business now run by the fifth generation of the family. After a brief tour of the wine caves with the owner, we were offered a tasting of their range of wines; rose, white, a number of different reds and naturally the chance to buy afterwards.
For the second part of our week away, we stayed in Chinon and spent a few days visiting the area around Tours and Saumur, which again involved visiting more of the magnificent Loire Chateaux and visits to a number of local wine producers and as luck would have it the annual wine fair in Chinon too.
One weekend in April each year the town centre is taken over by the regions wine producers each looking to promote their own vineyard. Throughout the town there were a number of tents set up to house the 'vignerons' and accommodate the eager public.
Upon arrival we were each invited to buy a wineglass which we would keep with us for the day and would facilitate numerous tastings throughout the day. It really was quite a sight to see, everyone you met anywhere in the town, were carrying their wineglass.
It was a most enjoyable way to spend the afternoon, talking to the wine producers about their own wines, understanding the different grapes, soil types and tastes and most importantly after more than enough free samples, we left laden with the afternoon’s purchases.
A most enjoyable break to another beautiful area of France; we feel so lucky living where we do, as we have so many wonderful regions of France to discover right on our doorstep!
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10/04/2012 |
Easter parade
Every year the village of Lanouaille in Perigord has an Easter parade and this year was no exception. On Easter Sunday afternoon, we made our way to the village and were greeted by the sights and sounds of the fun fair, much to our daughter’s delight. As we walked through the streets, it was evident that the entertainment had begun, as there was a line dancing group performing to the crowd.
Next came the floats, dancers and ‘Bandas’ bands who all made up the parade. This year’s theme was cultural and as the imaginative and beautifully designed floats come into view, they had all been decorated with hand-made paper flowers which must have taken ages to do. There was Tintin and his rocket, the Eiffel tower, a red telephone box and union jack, a windmill, a gingerbread cottage, a giant Spanish bull to name but a few. The school children on the floats threw confetti and sweets as they passed and the air was filled music and laughter.
The Easter parade is the first ‘fete’ of the season. Everyone gets together from the surrounding villages, the children have fun, families and friends catch up and take time out. I always see it as the signal that spring is here and there will be plenty more ‘fetes’ to come over the coming weeks and months.
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16/03/2012 |
Spring is just around the corner
We’ve been a bit remiss with updating the blog for a few weeks, but we are back now…
With spring just around the corner and South west France enjoying temperatures of 25 degrees this week, it seems that winter is now well and truly behind us and all thoughts now are of spring and the coming of the new season.
With these exceptionally mild temperatures it has been a delight this week to sit outside and enjoy the sun whilst drinking coffee or aperitifs. The sun has created a flurry of activity in the garden too;
Most French people have a vegetable garden and it is now that all the preparation work begins for this year’s crops; ploughing or rotavating the land, planting the first seeds and seeing the first signs of this year’s growth.
The vegetable garden or ‘potager’ is such a large part of the rural French way of life, most of our retired neighbours will spend 2 or 3 hours a day tending the garden and providing enough fresh produce for the whole of their extended family.
For those of us who are clearly novice gardeners, (and don’t have the time to spend in the garden) there are always friendly words of advice if you take the time to stop and talk…
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22/02/2012 |
Prize bull!
I read this week, with a bit of a smile, the amazing story of a prize Limousin bull being sold for the world record price of £126,000.
Living and working in the Limousin, the beautiful Limousin breed is a common sight in the fields around here, they are after all our local breed.
The Limousin breed is well known for the quality of its meat; when buying from our local butcher he will readily tell you which of the local farms supplied this particular animal.
I wonder what our farming neighbours would make of the amazing price tag ? |
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07/02/2012 |
Community service
As the big freeze continues to cause havoc across all of Europe, Limousin as with the rest of France, has not gone untouched.
This morning when I drove my daughter to school the temperature gauge on the car was registering a rather chilly minus 15 degrees, this afternoon we have reached a high of minus 4; with these somewhat arctic temperatures forecast to continue for the rest of this week and into next!
For the older generation in our hamlet they simply cannot get out of the house, let alone make the 5 mile trip into the local village for their daily essentials. With this in mind I received a phone call from our neighbour, Michelle, this morning saying she was going to make the trip to the bakery and did we need anything. Ordinarily the local bakery delivers to the outlying areas 3 or 4 times a week .
She explained that she was phoning all the neighbours in the hamlet to take their orders for bread and essential supplies, I therefore offered to drive and as we set off Michelle explained that autrefois (in times gone by)when the roads had been impassable her father had made this trip on his open top tractor!
Arriving at the local bakery they already knew exactly who wanted what and would take no payment from us; instead they would seek payment from each household next time they made their deliveries.
Returning to the hamlet it really was an eye opener that so many of our neighbours had simply not been outside in the two days since the snow fell and how much our rural community relies on local traders doing the rounds of the outlying hamlets.
With the cold spell set to continue and more snow forecast tomorrow, we will be ready to do the rounds again in the coming days.
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06/02/2012 |
The local terroir
I watched Raymond Blanc’s the very hungry Frenchman the other night in which he visited his home region of Franche Comte exploring its regional cuisine and local wines.
The programme prompted me to take stock of all that is good about Limousin, the local produce, our regional cuisine and the fine regional wines, in short many of the same things Raymond experienced in his home region.
In rural France there is much importance placed on the local “terroir”, the character and traditions of the region, the understanding of the earth, the land, the climate, the environment and its interaction with man, all combining to produce the finest local produce.
Limousin beef, apples, cherries, clafoutis (a regional cherry pie) walnuts, magret de canard, confit de canard, foie gras, the local black bottomed pig, all of which must of course be accompanied by a fine wine from the neighbouring Bergerac region.
How fortunate we are to live in such a rich and diverse region.
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29/01/2012 |
Hanging the ham..
Last weekend saw the hanging of the ham, something which had become an eagerly anticipated event in our household. Let me explain...
Back in the autumn Tanya met up with some former clients of ours who purchased a beautiful small holding on the Dordogne / Correze borders. The couple raise a pair of pigs each year, one for their own consumption, the other they sell.
You couldn’t have met a pair of happier pigs, roaming the orchard and feeding on acorns, pumpkins and peaches, with a diet like that, they were going to be a pair of tasty pigs.
So we agreed to buy half a pig and a week or so before Christmas we received the phone call to say our meat was ready to collect.
The day was then spent sorting the meat, freezing the chops and the roasting joints, making home cured bacon, dicing the meat for sausages, preparing pâtés and rilettes.
The main event however is always preparing the leg to cure as air dried ham, something which you will find in all French supermarkets and most French homes.
The process starts with salting and seasoning the ham and then storing in a salting box for up to 30 days. Once the ham comes out of the salt it is rinsed wrapped in a protective muslin sack and hung to dry.
The air drying itself can take anything between 6 and 8 months with the ham hung in a well ventilated spot from one of the old oak beams in our living room.
Now we have the long patient wait until sometime in August when we will take down the ham and get to taste our own home produced Serrano ham.
I’m sure we’ll let you know how it turns out later in the year, but in the meantime we’ll just keep enjoying all the other wonderful cuts of meat. |
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18/01/2012 |
Up to my knees in it...
A rather unusual interruption to our Christmas day celebrations presented itself this year.
We were hosting a large family gathering this year with my parents and my son having travelled from England for the Christmas holidays, Tanya’s parents joined us from their home in France and her step brother had arrived from London for a few days break.
The day started, as I’m sure any other family Christmas in any other household would, with the giving and receiving of presents, although one or two of our number (who shall remain nameless) were somewhat under the weather after a touch of over exuberance the night before!
Christmas dinner with us tends to last most of the day and started with champagne and aperitifs sometime around lunchtime followed by a procession of courses over the course of the afternoon.
It was between courses, that for one reason or another my father went outside and when he returned he said something along the lines of “is it normal that the neighbour's horse is lying on its side kicking out like that?” Clearly something was wrong as indeed it turned out it to be.
I phoned our neighbour, Hélène (also in the middle of her Christmas dinner) and tried to explain that something was wrong with one of her horses and she should come quickly, whilst at the same time searching for my wellies and coat to go to the assistance of the horse.
On arriving at the horse, it appeared that it had somehow trapped one of its legs between the steel bars of its feeder and in struggling to free itself had tipped over said large steel feeder and trapped its hoof. Naturally the animal was becoming rather distressed and kicking out wildly.
Now I’m not what you'd call a 'horsey' person and a distressed horse kicking out wildly was not the sort of situation I’d envisaged for Christmas day.
Hélène tried to calm the horse whilst her sister and I tried to move the feeder and free the trapped leg. We could do no more than release some of the pressure on the leg, it simply wasn’t going to be freed that easily.
Plan B was quickly adopted, we would have to cut through the one of the bars of the feeder, which would involve one of us (guess who?) negotiating their way past said kicking horse and climbing into the feeder to be able to cut through the steel frame.
Fifteen minutes later, we succeed in freeing the horse without further incident, the vet was called and thankfully there was no serious damage to the leg. My father is elevated to hero status in the eyes of Hélène, for it was he who spotted the horse in its moment of need.
For the rest of the assembled crowd it was back to the dinner table to continue the celebrations, with one eye remaining on the field next door.
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13/01/2012 |
Galette des Rois - A French New Year tradition
On Wednesdays, I tend to work from home, as our daughter who is in her last year at primary school, doesn’t have school on a Wednesday. We work first thing (me, to catch up with e-mails, phone calls etc and her with homework) then we like to take the dogs for an hour’s walk before lunch.
This week was no exception, the sun was shining, it was a beautiful warm January day and the dogs were chomping at the bit to have a good run.
On our way back, we were hailed by our neighbour, Raymonde, the matriarch of the hamlet. “I’m in the middle of lunch” she says, which I could tell as she was still in mid-chew! I have to admit, at first I thought something was wrong as it’s not normal for the French to interrupt their lunch. After we’ve had the customary bisous (a kiss on each cheek to say hello), she asks if we’re free Saturday night to come over for a drink. Unfortunately, I explain we have something else planned for Saturday evening. No matter, the date is changed for the day before and we’re off this Friday evening with some of our other neighbours for an aperitif and the cutting of the galette des Rois (cake of the Kings, traditionally eaten on Twelfth night) to celebrate epiphany and the start of the New Year.
I have to admit, we’re all quite looking forward to it, as it will be the first time we’ve ever been invited into their house(after 7 years of living in the hamlet!). Don’t get me wrong, we see a lot of George and Raymonde, they are usually outside when we pass and we always take the time to stop for a quick chat. However, this time it looks like we’re going to actually make it past the garden gate!!
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12/01/2012 |
Where did it all begin?
When people first get into contact with us at Limousin Property Agents, they seem surprised by the fact that we’re not tucked away in a small dingy office somewhere in the UK, but we live and work full time in this part of France. We have actually done what a lot of people dream about; we upped sticks, sold up lock stock and barrel and moved our family to rural France.
It’s quite amazing to think we bought our then holiday home in this area over 8 years ago, 6 months later it become our permanent home and this coming March will be our 7th anniversary of selling French property in this idyllic corner of South West France.
Looking back over our years in France, we’ve had so many different experiences, so many ups and downs (thankfully more ups) and there are so many amusing things that have happened along the way, which has made living here a great adventure and one we still really enjoy. We have the most wonderful neighbours and friends and we really feel part of the local community.
We thought it might be nice to give you a taste of what it’s actually like to live in this part of the world, warts and all so welcome to our ‘blog’.
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12/01/2012 |
Coming soon....
Over the coming year you can follow our thoughts, our experiences and on musings on life in rural France.
We hope you will enjoy sharing some of our experiences
Tanya & Allan |
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