Nightingales in the rain

Gosh, that sounds poetic...

I've been up to many things, since last here. Not least a little jaunt to France for a top-up of chill before the madness that is the summer term. (I don't know why, but everything seems to happen in June and July and if we don't get away before it all kicks off, we fear total collapse before we reach our ultimate goal of the summer holiday in Brittany - it's a tough life :)

So here is a little video I put together with some of my 290 holiday photos. It took me most of the day to work out how to connect the camera to the laptop, so to then produce a video - well, I'm astounded and feel I might just have achieved something!

Yes, the village we stayed in is beautiful, but for me it's all in the detail - the moss growing on the stone walls, the rain drops on the leaves, roses growing everywhere, the view through the vine leaves and across rooftops to a patchwork of fields and woods, a little snail (no, didn't eat any this time although I have before - I do it for the garlic butter), the rusty ironwork holding together the cracks in the cottage walls....anyway, enough from me - enjoy!

(If you can't get the video to play here, you can also watch it on my Facebook page)

Chartres cathedral, and other matters

This evening I thought "Right! That's it!" and so here I am.

I haven't blogged for over a month (a month! my biggest lapse ever?), not since we went to France at Easter. Golly, how time flies. I'm up to my neck in Ofsted inspection prep at the moment, but I've had a glass of wine, it's gone 9pm, and xxx it, I'm going to stop doing paperwork and do this instead!

Yes, we went to France. After a horrendous end of spring term, due to allergies (now tracked down to birch pollen, which also apparently explains my new "funny mouth and throat tingle" after eating unskinned almonds and hazelnuts, and peaches and pears - all related, allergy-wise), we were just about ready for a holiday.

But it was a long way.  Mostly motorway, but with a large detour around Paris via Rouen, Evreux, Dreux, and last but not least - Chartres. Of the cathedral fame. The whopping great cathedral you can spot from several miles out, looming on the horizon. 

Here is a photo:

Do you like the digger and the caravans? No? Here is a better one:

Like the graffiti...the cathedral is behind that bush, honest.

Anyway, several many lots of hours later, we arrived somewhere just south of the exact middle of France. The next morning there was a bread van, and funny croissants:

The weather was glorious. We had a lovely enclosed garden, one sun lounger to fight over, four different sitting and eating spots

a view over the nothingness of the Creuse

a rope swing in the cherry tree (there is a Girl in there if you look closely) 

and a gate, so the Whippet couldn't chase the three cats (oh go on, Mum - please can I?)

The garden had a lot of nettles, so I proceeded to embarrass and horrify the Girl by brewing up daily potions of nettle tea - it's a natural antihistamine, apparently. Seemed to work a bit, but relaxing with my feet up on the woodburner with a glass of wine to hand, and having hours of lovely sleep also seemed to work their magic!

Having learnt our lesson last year, the first thing on the list when looking for a gite was said woodburner. Here is the Whippet, after a busy day on the sun lounger. He's still on the sun lounger cushion here...

It may have been warm during the day, but the evenings were tres nippy. And there was still snow on the mountains, so we went to have a look.

Blimey, Mum. Didn't know we were going skiing!

We can also say that we took our bikes to France and went up the Puy de Dome. Here is the Boy with very uncertain ears, on the train going to the top of the Puy.

And here is the view:

What we didn't realise when we booked it up, was that the towns of Aubusson and Felletin were a short drive away. Aubusson, famous for the tapestries, and Felletin, home of the European wool and felt festival! Who knew???

So I obviously had to buy some wool (I may have wool, but I haven't got any from Felletin...) and I proceeded to make a miniature pot for the gite owner's 50th birthday. Possibly the tiniest, most strangely damp present ever!

and I found these wonderful spindles and ball of (linen?) in a junk shop. I wanted to go back for more, but they shut for their three hour lunch break so we ran out of time. Boo.

Then home again home again, via Chartres as before. Look!

I think this is my favourite shot:

gotcha!

one parting glimpse...

Right, got all that lot out of my system. Next time, some embroidery! We've been busy in the classes (as usual) and I've got to get my bottom in gear for Art Trail, so lots of embroidery will be appearing here soon - promise! Just got to get Ofsted out of the way first....

Brrrr

We're back, from very chilly Normandy.  Possibly the coldest holiday ever, in a lovely but quite basic and VERY COLD gite....with no woodburner.  

It was so cold the simnel cake I packed nearly froze and needed to be hacked into pieces with the one and only sharp knife provided...

and the well-known brand of hazelnut spread needed to be chipped out of the jar...

But at least it was sunny.  Most of the time.

I have no idea what you call these stacks of wood, but if we'd had a woodburner we'd have pinched them.  We almost burnt the furniture in desperation as it was...

But despite the cold we managed to get out and about every day.  Random photos of old road signs were taken:

I indulged in the obligatory embarrassment of the Girl by taking photos of cheese:

We couldn't find any pirates, but we did find lovely chocolates and pastries within:

And we ran the legs off the Whippet with a 19 mile walkies (bike ride for us) on a resurfaced railway line.  Here are the Girl and the Boy disappearing off into the haze...

We didn't mean to go that far...

When we weren't out and about we wore as many layers of woolly clothes as possible without restricting the use of our arms, and sat in the sunshine on hideous velour-covered armchairs.  Or Mum, as the case may be...

Warmer than a hot-water bottle...but it made my cutting and sticking and sketchbooking a bit tricky...

We weren't completely without our comforts.  Gite cooking always starts unpromisingly, given the basic equipment and uncontrollable gas cookers, but I was very chuffed with this leek tart invention baked on a pizza tray:

although we all picked off the cherry tomatoes....

And come evening, what could be more cosy than a glass of wine by the fire?

Hmm.  I have a few thoughts....

But a sign of a good holiday must be that we were glad to be home, and appreciative of our warm house with a well-equipped kitchen and the lack of any need for woollen fingerless mitts while chopping vegetables, or the need to wear a hat in bed.  

And I got a ton of cutting and sticking and organising finished, and I'm all inspired and ready to go for the summer term, so that's very good indeed.

The Holiday of the Chickens

As mentioned previously, last week we effected an escape from the country.

Basically, we packed the Girl off to school with her suitcase on Monday morning, then legged it.  We even had the theme tune from The Great Escape in the car on the way to Folkestone...and while the Girl and her teacher and classmates were chugging their way across the Channel in their ferry, we were under it on a train on our way to France.

And after many hours of tunnelling and driving, we arrived at the Gite of Chickens, somewhere in Normandy:

Yes, we spent our holiday photographing chickens.  And watching chickens.  And teasing chickens, by making them run for breadcrumbs.  (Have you ever seen chickens run?  Hilarious)...And that cockerel, he was well and truly hen-pecked - the chickens even stole food from his beak.  Didn't stop him waking up at 5 every morning, though...

Chickens, the last Wallander book, a cold beer....bliss.

We did venture out occasionally, to enjoy a meal a deux

The John Steele being this chap, suspended on the church at Sainte Mere Eglise by his parachute on D-Day.  You'd have thought someone would have helped him down by now...

Inside there's quite a bit of stained glass dedicated to the American parachute regiments (most notably 101 Airborne, of Band of Brothers fame)

But mostly, we just sat around and looked at this

Heavenly.