French life, how it's done

Galette des Rois - The French tart with a charm

Hello Dear Readers,

I write to you today about the Galette des Rois, this is traditionally a frangipane cake which always includes a paper crown, it is usually eaten on 6th January for Epiphany, this however is not a bank holiday so the actual feast day occurs on the first Sunday of January (unless it falls on the 1st,) then it goes to the next Sunday.
So you guessed, it will be tomorrow.

Normally this galette it made from Frangipane and puff pastry ( Pate Feuillettee)
But the one in the picture is brioche with bits of chocolate, so I guess it is more like a giant pain au chocolat, yummy yummy.

According to tradition the cake must be cut into enough slices so that each person gets a slice and a few more in case of unexpected guests, Here they have a gadget that you sit on top of a cake or gateaux and it allows you to cut equal sized slices, there will be a small figurine baked into the cake and the person who gets this figurine in their slice will have good luck for the year and becomes the king or queen for the day, wearing the crown provided, it is a good party game and the French love their party games, in order for it to be fair a child must sit under the table and shout out the names of everyone there and a slice is presented to that person. it would be very unusual for there not to be a child present as this is a family affair and the children are always involved as they are always well behaved, maybe this is why they grow up into such nice rounded people. when you think about it, if you send children to bed while you are having fun what does that say to the child,  interesting.!

Here is a video link so you can see how its done.
http://www.commeunefrancaise.com/galette-rois/

Happy l'Epiphanie to all.

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Life changes

Hello dear readers,

I have been doing some thinking about our life here today as someone asked if our lives had changed since we made the move,  I used to think there was no change in fact I would have said there was no difference in our cultures but over the years we have realised that there are some,  but nothing that is insurmountable, we came to France because we loved the fact that here in the rural countryside they seem to be at least 50 years behind England,  life is just like it was when we were kids,  safe to run around outside without getting robbed or attacked,  people especially children still have respect for others and elders,  don't get me wrong, it is starting to change now sadly and as you travel closer to the big cities you will see the graffiti some of which I find very artistic, the french in some areas are getting wise to it now and growing trees instead of concrete walls,  I very often see council workers trying for hours at a time to clean it off but I feel it would be much quicker if they painted it, I wonder why they don't invent a surface that rejects paint in the first place,
Here are a few differences we have found
.
●  Children behave in shops
●  Everyone greets you even if they don't know you
●  men kiss men to greet them (usually family)
●  food and the way we eat is different
●  The French are creatures of habit
●  If you buy the barman in a bar a drink he has to buy one back until neither of you       can leave or at least that is what it is like at our bar. and of course the wine is so           cheap.

That's just a few for today.

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New Year Resolutions

Hello dear readers,

We always have a trifle for any celebration and it is always made in Mum's cut glass bowl
God knows what we would do if we broke it

With A New Year comes new years resolutions, we all make them and we all break them, some sooner than others, I guess there are some people who make them and see them through to the end successfully, sadly I am not one of them.
So with the new year upon us, do the French make them too, the answer is yes....
(Les bonnes resolution du nouvel an).
My neighbour says it is always to lose weight well if you could see her she is so slim, tiny in fact and I tell her "you don't need to lose weight" and she replies " that's because I am constantly on a diet" or Regime as they call it here.
The other one or two are to give up smoking or drinking alcohol, have you noticed these are all the things we love, perhaps not the smoking we gave that up 34 years ago but we do like a drink and we love our food, Well I got to thinking there must be an easier way to do this resolution thing, when you really think about it you don't have to give something up completely, right...why not learn a new language, in my case improve my French so that my poor friend and neighbour Jossette doesn't have to struggle so much with understanding me, you could cut down on something rather than give it up altogether, I am all for that, I am no good with diets, the minute I say I am on one I constantly think about food and can't last longer than a week so I thought I would cut back (not cut out) the snacks between meals and perhaps change some of the snacks for healthier options like fruit, yes that sounds good.
I won't make so many Trifles therefore I won't end up like this ♧

Please let me know what you are doing for your New Years resolutions. ♡

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Winter Proper - A Winter Wonderland

Hello dear readers,

Winter has hit us with a bang and we have what is called a Hoar Frost, this is a frost on steroids where crystalline frost forms on vegetation and forms beautiful shards of ice and icicles  to make such a beauty of nature, I could look at it all day, as we drove to do some shopping it was like being in a proper winter wonderland, pure white for as far as you could see and oh so magical as if nature was preserving the old year in time and dressing it perfectly to welcome the new dawn,

This was our red robin shrubs with just a touch of frost all around the edges of the leaves,

Hoar-Frost

Amy Lowell, 1874 - 1925

In the cloud-grey mornings
I heard the herons flying;
And when I came into my garden,
My silken outer-garment
Trailed over withered leaves.
A dried leaf crumbles at a touch,
But I have seen many Autumns
With herons blowing like smoke
Across the sky.

The little chapel is just out of the back of our garden

*

This is to the side of the chapel where the village children play, it was too cold for the today

This is our tap outside which had been drained, I do hope it will be ok,

I haven't seen icicles for a few years,

Where does the poor spider go when this happens, maybe he is very hardy and can walk on ice

Last summers flower heads, left on to protect the plant from such cold but given a last blast of beauty,

This ornamental grass frozen in time, will it ever be able to get back to its glory ever again, Nature is such a beautiful thing but I think so much more so in the rural countryside.

Cobwebs on the gazebo made even more beautiful, the crystals allow you to see how amazing they are.


Well dear readers it is the end of 2016 and I have opened the back door to let it go and opened the front door to let 2017 in, all that remains is to say

Good Health and Happiness to you all 

Glad tidings we bring

Merry Christmas to all my dear blog readers
I hope you are all safe and well and looking forward to tomorrow with exitement, I also wish for you everything you wish for yourselves where ever you are in the world.
Thank you for reading my blog over the years and I sincerely hope you will continue to do so over the coming years.
My wish is for Peace and love and understanding in the world

A very Happy Birthday to my wonderful hubby John for Christmas day

Nearly Christmas

Hello dear readers

Christmas is almost here and am I ready, sadly not yet, there are 101 things to do before the big day, we have dear friends coming on the day to help us celebrate the season and John's birthday of course, There are beds to be made ready in case anyone wants or needs to stay over, Presents to be wrapped andthe house must be cleaned and all the last minute tinsel and glitter added to every nook and cranny, There are the beef bones to roast and boil to make the most delicious gravy, the red cabbage to be boiled down with lots of nice flavours for an accompaniment to the wonderful joint of meat we will be having on Christmas day, not to mention the mince pies and sausage rolls to make plus the last minute shopping to do, oh my will I ever get it all done 😇 yet somehow it does all get done, it is only one day after all.
Christmas for the French of course as I understand it happens on 24th December, in theory the whole family gets together on the evening for a grand feast which is normally fish / seafood and you will see them at the very last minute on Christmas eve in their droves in the supermarkets collecting their pre-ordered Oysters,lobsters, prawns etc; all to be washed down with oodles of champagne of course, this feast will start at approximately 9pm and somewhere thereafter the children will be allowed to open their gifts ( this I think is a far better way to do it feed the kids until they are fit to burst get them very tired, let them open their gifts and then they are ready and willing to go to bed) result ☺
The grown ups of course can party for as long as they want to in fact I have known them to still be eating at 5am, at midnight they go to midnight mass or if you are in our village they have stopped it and now go at 8pm, no wonder they sleep most of 25th.
We are just off to give gifts to our local Pharmacy and the receptionists at the Doctors surgery as they are so good to us and help out a great deal.

so a very Merry Christmas to you all and a very prosperous and Happy 2017

Tis the season to be merry

Tra la la la la la la la.

I seem to have loads of Christmas songs in my head and just blart them out at random, to John's amazement but I am really in the seasonal zone right now, for those that know me this is so out of character but long may it last.

My dear John has his birthday on Christmas day and it always gets lost in the excitement of Christmas in fact he very often doesnt get many cards as people will just add it on in Christmas cards but he is used to it now, so, yesterday we decided to celebrate his birthday a little and he was allowed to open a present.

I got it from a proper jewellery store and they really packed it up nicely for free

 A lovely box within a bag ribbons and all

oh the excitement

And yet another box, he was so pleased with his watch as he had been without one for so long and I couldn't get him used to looking at his phone for the time. A happy bunny.

Thanks for reading dear friends 

Christmas is coming

The Goose is getting fat, Please put a penny in the old man's hat,
If you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do,If you haven't got a halfpenny, God bless you.

OR as my friend Moira says "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" see her blog here https://moisfrenchadventure.com

As usual the festive season is almost here without me being organised, I say every year, just after Christmas that I will be organised next time but of course I have to go through the doom and gloom of the onset to winter which I hate but then I seem to come out of the mist and start to get excited and focused, I must say that I have bought the beef for Christmas dinner (I nearly fainted at the price) but it is a lovely piece from the English butchers in Gorron, you can find them here http://www.elliottsboucherie.com   they are a traditional butchers and they have some well hung meat also lots of goodies like homemade sausages, Scotch eggs, which John loves (I can't eat eggs)  proper gammon steaks and homemade pork pies to mention just a few,
I have also posted my Christmas cards to all 4 corners of the world although I believe there will be a postal strike in UK so hopefully they will reach their destination on time.
yesterday we put up our Christmas tree and other bits

and for the first time I actually enjoyed doing it, maybe it was the fact that we had Christmas carols playing while we did it that cheered it all up but of course once you sing these songs they stay in your head, now I can't stop singing them, dear John just looks at me when I burst into song and says "you are a happy little bunny"

How are your preparations going?

Quertily Queer

Hello Dear Readers.

Today my dearly beloved bought me a wifi bluetooth dear little keyboard for my tablet.

As you can see it is a Azerty and not a Querty keyboard, so I pair it to my tablet and start to type with it then realise I am typing rubbish, ... although it is on the face of it a azerty it is typing as a querty and nothing I can do will change it .... I have unpaired it and reinstated it, turned off the tablet and turned it back on, all the the usual but it will not change, don't get me wrong I am coping with it in fact it is a bit of a challenge, it keeps the old brain working.

If you have any ideas do please let me know, until next time.

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Tis the season

Hello dear readers,

Yes the Christmas season is almost upon us and as usual I am not ready for it, it creeps up on me every year, I intend to be organised and get all my cards made in plenty of time (they are usually none existent here) but this year we have had a new chain of shops that have opened locally called Action, they have many English items and lots of crafty things but most importantly they had English Christmas cards in boxes, don't misunderstand me, Christmas means the same here as in UK but they don't really do cards and the cards don't say Merry Christmas, they say Joyeaux Noel, call me old fashioned but I like proper traditional cards....

Thinking back to when we first came to France for a holiday, you certainly wouldn't have found anything English, not in our part of rural France and that was how we liked it, here was like being back in England 50 years ago, safe to walk out at night, you could leave your doors unlocked in fact only Saturday outside of our small super market there was an unattended car with its engine running, we couldn't do that back in the UK.

So here I am toasting my toes while writing my Christmas cards.

Have you written yours yet?