No. 15…

Earlier this week I met a friend in Angles sur L’Anglin. We had a walk around the lanes and along the river and ended up at Number 15. This is a lovely tea room which opened a few months ago. The decor is wonderful, the cakes delicious and the welcome from Nick and Nadia warm and friendly.

  

I know that I shall be calling in whenever I’m in the village. Not good for the waistline, but certainly good for the feel good factor. They serve a wide range of teas, cakes and pastries using some beautiful crockery. They also serve light meals and a daily menu, all at very reasonable prices.

 

Pop in if you are in the area. You can sit inside or on one of the shaded terraces. Take a few minutes to listen to the birds and the river. You won’t be disappointed…

Just the two of us…

Some yellow Crookneck squash, courtesy of Tim and Pauline.

This nest certainly is empty…

Good things come…

… to those who toil.

Beber and Simone, our neighbours mentioned that the bief that runs along the bottom of our garden was looking dirty. On further questioning it became clear that it was our responsibility, whether real or assumed, to keep the banks of the bief clear. Looking back we remembered that when we bought Le Pre Vert in 2009 you could see the bief from the garden. However, in 2013 we couldn’t. We hadn’t realised that we should do this so at 9am the following morning we set to!!

Before…

Tim cut and chopped and I carried. By 2pm we’d cleared about three quarters but were suffering from nettle stings, bramble scraggs, insect bites and heatstroke. We weren’t exactly dressed for the job – shorts, t-shirts, no socks but we did wear gloves.

So less than an hour, and a hunk of bread and cheese later we were feeling very sorry for ourselves when Claudette arrived. Of course she brought Simon and Susan with her and they suggested a photoshoot for the 1956 lady. Assuming they meant me, I brushed my hair and donned my new best dress!

  

We had a wonderful time riding in style looking for some stunning backdrops for the elegant lady.She certainly turned some heads as Simon parked her at Le Grand Pressigny and La Guerche. Susan and Simon are used to the local interest as people want to know more about Claudette.

 The moon at 7am.

Our stings and scraggs were soon forgotten - until 7am the next morning. We’d decided to make an early start to complete the work on the bief.

  

This morning when we collected our bread Simone praised us for our excellent work.

Clearing the bief is another job to be added to our list of must do’s when we visit.

Did I mention that we’re on holiday?

Moules frites…

Last night we shared moules frites with friends and about 500 other diners at L’Auberge de la Gabriere.

We’ve eaten here a few times and the food is always superb. Music was provided by Les Compagnons du Musette – Alain their leader is a neighbour of our friends John and Maureen.

 

 

The food and company were excellent with enough moules to choke a donkey! The award for last men standing goes to John and Steve who determindly didn’t give up until every moule was munched…

Dessert

Thanks Maureen for the vegetables, eggs and preserves. We won’t be going hungry; a true friend!

A great way to start our time in La Touraine…

The final hurdle…

We were finally ready to set out for France. Tom safely in Japan, and I’d like to say that Rhiannon’s house renovations are complete but that wouldn’t be completely true! Just the kitchen wall tiling remains to be done. The house is, however, looking fantastic. When the renovations are complete I’ll show some of Rhiannon’s before and after pics.

As ever, the final hurdle is always the journey to the shuttle. As Tim still works we are limited to timings as we try to fit in the journey to Folkestone after work so that it doesn’t eat into his leave allocation.

Yesterday the M25 was a nightmare and we arrived 20 minutes late for our 7.20 check in. The next available shuttle was at 11.19! I queued at customer service but the man was so rude to the mild mannered French man in front of me that I didn’t bother asking! The customer service man kept berating him in a very rude and condescending way that the shuttle was very busy and that queues were to be expected. Actually there were no more than about 100 cars in the car park and the terminal was almost deserted! I couldn’t see the logic.

Tim went back but there wasn’t any changing the times so we settled ourselves for a long wait.

Gadget man, (aka IT support) played with my new i-pad and I took myself off to what used to be duty free. I didn’t have any intention of buying but I did smother my face, eyes, neck, hands and forearms with the most expensive beauty potions I could find. My face was treated to potion after potion and I must say it felt good.

However, although I can’t be certain which potion was best, I fear that it might be this one…

Luckily for you I didn’t take any before and after pics of my face! Next time I’m delayed at the shuttle I might just take a little pot to put my free sample in.

As bad luck would have it (or Sod’s law) our 11.19pm shuttle was late. We finally arrived at the Ibis at Coquelles at 1.30 am (French time) and any benefit from the face potions had long since worn off…

Blackboard skills

When we first started teaching in the late 1970’s, written communication with pupils was via the chalk blackboard or the banda machine.

Nowadays blackboards are hardly ever used in schools, in fact all of ours were removed to be replaced with very expensive interactive whiteboards. We also have a few small metal white boards.

Although I use my interactive whiteboard constantly, I love the look of words written on a blackboard. Mind you, I can’t write in comic sans whereas I am able to type in it!!

Still, Tim has found a good use for all of that all of that redundant chalk …

 

He takes a photograph of our kitchen notice board at Le Petit-Pressigny.

What he hasn’t got the knack of doing yet is to check the photograph of the list BEFORE we return to France!

Would you like a biscuit?

I have some rather delicious homemade biscuits. The ingredients are:

Wholemeal flour,vegetable fat, eggs, bananas, Staffordshire honey, syrup, milk and oats.

My family are partial to a hobnob, so I wondered whether these biscuits would do nicely.

What do you think?

Maybe the biscuits are better suited to this branch of the family…

Half a whale….. away!

Thank you for your supportive comments following my last post. Tom met up with the other JET participants at Heathrow with all of the correct documentation which meant that he escaped ‘termination’. Saying goodbye didn’t prove as difficult as I’d imagined, but arriving home to find the beautiful note that he had left for us did! I’m just very glad that he didn’t say those things at the airport.

In order to keep in touch,apart from via Skype and Facetime, Tom has started a blog which you can find here and/or here while he compares and contrasts the relative merits of Blogger and Wordpress.

 

 

The ‘wiggly-jigglies’…

A few months ago Tom emailed Tim to say that he had a case of the ‘wiggly-jigglies’. He was waiting to find out whether he had been accepted to take part in the JET – Japanese English Teaching - programme.

He was accepted, and tomorrow he will be on BA flight 005 heading for Tokyo and then on to Kagoshima, in the very south of Japan.

Guess who’s got the ‘wiggly-jigglies’ now?

WATCH THIS SPACE…