Llangollen....................

Trevor Hall

Trevor Hall, Llangollen, North Wales or as we say to all our french friends Pays de Galles. A beautiful and special country house set in glorious countryside and the venue for the most wonderful and happy weekend ever.

Yes Matt and Bethan were married at 3.30 on Saturday 5th September 2009, in front of family and very special friends who had travelled from all corners of the globe to witness and take part in the best wedding ever, in the best wedding venue ever............

Even the Welsh weather behaved itself on the day and we were able to enjoy the grounds of the hall while drinking champagne and meeting new friends and family.........the Jones's.

What a stunning couple they make and obviously so happy together. We are very happy for them both, Matt is a very lucky man, not only does have a loving and beautiful wife but he also gets to be part of her wonderful family.
The Jones's and the Fosters

We are now back home in south west France recovering and getting ready for the coming winter. The potager has given up most of its harvest, much of which is stored in the sous sol. We helped our neighbour with la vendange (grape harvest) and the other day there was a present from this years vintage waiting on the terrace for us. There is definitely a rhythm to life in this part of the world, that follows the seasons and the rest of the animal kingdom very closely. The busy summer is now over and the tourists have gone home, all the associated industries have closed down and what we are left with now is our village and countryside. It is time to gather in the wood to keep us warm in the coming months. Like other animals and plants we are shutting down for the winter, we will make the occasional forays for food but, like most of our neighbours we will spend time indoors until the spring is here and then we will cast open the shutters again and start the preparations for another busy summer........and so it goes.

Fete a Luziers.............................

Time to celebrate and what better than a chocolate fountain!
August the 15th was the Feast day of the Assumption of Mary and in France a public holiday. It also heralds the invasion of Luziers by our neighbours extended family. They come from all parts of France to spend the holidays with ' Mami'............ in all around forty five, husbands, wives, children and grandchildren and next year maybe three great grandchildren (they have said the new additions are staying with us next year!!) They are a wonderful family and it is a privilege for us to be part of the family when they are here.

However, we do have the old bread oven of the hamlet!!

We knew when we bought the house that we would be expected to host the annual pizza party on the 15th. It is the highlight of the holiday and the whole family and other neighbours gather at chez nous, around the bread oven, to make pizza and drink wine and enjoy 'une belle soiree'.

The night was very warm and as you can see 'les pizzaiolos' decided to work a la Chippendales. Can't blame them really, they spent all night working in 50 degree temperatures around the oven. This of course made them very thirsty................

............this is Frederick, the boss(written on his back in marker pen!) doing his stuff with the pizza. As the night wore on there was as much pizza on him as in the oven...................

..............and as Frederick, Arno and Simone quenched their thirst more and more(not with water) the thicker the dough became and the toppings became heavier and heavier...................

..........joking aside the pizza was great and everyone appreciated their efforts and of course they made a great show of it. To finish the celebration one of our other neighbours had provided a chocolate fountain as dessert.............chocolate hands and faces all round!(see first photo)

After the party we all moved to our neighbours house for a game of petanque.........

........in a wonderful setting just beside the church.............it's very difficult to play boules in a dim light and after consuming several pints of vin rouge! At least that was my excuse for a pretty dismal effort in front of all those frenchies!

Mon Soixante .......................

Last Friday I joined the sexagenarian club and because Matt and Bethan and my brother Keith were here for the weekend so were the celebrations. So with apologies to Jude this a birthday shoot out in no particular order............I would have had to think to carefully about how I was loading the photos to get the order correct.

Bethan and Matt arrived just in time to see their sunflower seeds come to fruition. They are the tallest sunflowers I have ever seen. Remember Matt is over 6 feet tall!



On the Saturday after the party we had a lazy day in the garden after a late and long breakfast. Breakfast then morphed into a long boozy lunch, with much talk of wedding plans and the day culminated in a wine tasting session, more wedding planning and a session of dancing practice......

.............which as you can see didn't start off too well, mind you they were 2 bottles of rose and 4 bottles of red down by now!...................... however.............

things did improve as you can see............so hopefully the first dance will be fine..........no it will be more than fine!

This photo shows wine tasting and wedding planning in progress. The 4 bottles of red in question, not quite finished.

On Friday evening after the party we had booked a table at a local restaurant La Recreation which is in the village of Les Arques. We are just about to tuck into dessert.


This Keith relaxing the day after the party............

.............and this is frenchy John...........Guy and Christine our french neighbours came with a big box covered in wrapping paper and a card. The card said that the box contained everything I needed to be the "veritable frenchy". Inside the box was a baguette, a bottle of red wine, some cheese and a black beret!! Wonderful. This is the result.............
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The weather on Friday was a little changeable so we were in and out of the house in between showers....................


This is Bethan and Matt listening to Alice singing...............although I think Bethan is thinking about seating plans................in front of them are our neighbours Madam Gau and Bernedette Douriac.

In this photo Matt is cornered by two french ladies asking him, no doubt, about life in Saudi Arabia.

Time to cut the cake and blow out the candle.................


Alice singing and playing the guitar....................

And lastly our neighbour Guy wishing me bon anniversaire in true french style.............we remain just good friends..................

All the photos from the party are on facebook.

The Potager.....................

These sunflowers were grown from seeds given to us by Matt and Bethan after they visited The Eden Project. They must be 7 feet tall now and still growing!

I mentioned the potager in my last post but I was down there today and was amazed at how quickly some of the other legumes are growing, look at the size of my melons!!............... actually this is a double melon.......not sure how that will work out.......................

and when was the last time you saw a cucumber like that........................................

These two little frogs live in the stone wall of the terrace and they come out every night and sit next to each other and seem to talk to each other all night........like this........beep-beep.......beep-beep..........beep-beep........... yes all through the night!

We were having aperitifs with some of our French neighbours last night and we asked them if they knew what kind of frogs they were, they didn't seem to know, except for Guy who said he thought they were just frogs that needed their batteries changing...................

Tomorrow is Cazals market and then Francette's for breakfast quickly followed by a liquid lunch and then I think the hammock will be calling...............

It's raining rain, hallelujah.............

The heavens have opened this morning and the wet stuff is falling for the first time in awhile. It has been difficult for the last few weeks keeping the plants in the potager and in the pots alive and well, this last week has been especially hot, "canicule" is the word they use here to describe very hot weather, it's a great word especially if you are a geordie - it sounds exactly the same as canny cool, which in geordie tongue means exactly the opposite!

Everything is growing well in the potager, and at the moment we have the usual glut of courgettes and cucumbers and Lindsay is getting out the recipes for everything with courgettes! We have had the first harvest of peas and are now eating the first crop of potatoes. The "murphy's" have managed, so far, to survive an attack from the Colorado potato beetle, which are endemic in France apparently and very difficult to get rid of. We had friends to visit a couple of weeks ago and John spent a good few days picking grubs off the leaves and burning them. I have since resorted to spraying them with "agent orange" but they are still on the march and manger.

We had twelve tonne of castine delivered a few weeks ago to finish off the new terraces and the bottom of the drive. Thankfully it was not quite as hot as it has been lately as it had to be moved from the top of the drive by wheelbarrow!

This is the gin and tonic terrace finished, it faces the evening sun and is a wonderful spot at around 7 o'clock!

This is Lindsay leading another barrow load of castine to the bottom of the drive! A few year's ago I could not have imagined Lindsay getting involved in this or planting and weeding in the potager but she does it all now and enthusiastically !! Mind you she still insists on wearing gloves with flowers all over them ........ no soil must touch the hands, and sunflower wellies and shoes and now has her own wheelbarrow with flower stickers all over it!

Nearly there! Just about 6 tonne left to move!

This is Lindsay and Ann scoffing moules and frites by the lake at Frayssinet during La fete de Musique. They do moules frites every Friday evening at this small cafe by the lake and it is very popular with the local people and tourists alike.



We also had the annual fete du vin at Grezels a couple of weeks ago. All the local wine makers bring their wine for tasting and selling! It is a great event with picnic tables set around the wine stalls and you are able to choose and buy meat to BBQ yourself and eat with your picnic. It's great fun and much wine is "tasted" by everyone.
At the end of the day they finish with a barrel rolling competition.

This bloke seems to have consumed his fair share of wine, and maybe emptied this barrel.....they didn't win! I don't think they made it to the end of the course.

This is David, who approaches everything with great enthusiasm, in this case I think he approached the wine tasting with a little too much enthusiasm!

And this is John, who is looking very happy as he has just made sure that he has enough wine for his picnic!

A bird in the hand.............

We were just watching TV when we heard noises coming from the wood burner(now not in use thankfully). Taking a closer look we found this little chap behind the glass door. He left us fit and well flying off into the trees.

Another day another fete...............

Today we had the Fete des Fleurs et du Cheval in Cazals. We missed this last year as we were back in the UK. As it turned out the fete was not just a celebration of the flowers but also a horse show.......

We arrived just as the action was about to start in the horse training ring and in typical fashion the compere was loudly telling everyone to get close and come out of the shady areas...."what's the worst that can happen...........you get a sun tan", he said. A bloke with a nice red cape rode into the ring and proceeded to ride very fast round the ring while blowing his own trumpet, well horn.

He then got some beautiful black horses to run very fast round the ring while he rode alongside. Then he really started to show off by riding one of these horses bareback and jumping on and off the horses as it was moving.........he'd obviously done this sort of thing before. The show finished with him running around playing "catch me if you can" with a white horse and making it sit up for applause.

We found that there were also stalls selling locally produced cheeses and charcuterie. They had some wonderfully original decorations to go with the produce on the stalls.........mmm, I'm not sure...............

The sanglier looks a bit too real...............

On the way to see the flowers we met this horse trainer trying to get his pal to have a nice cool drink from the stream, he seemed to be content to soak his feet...............

The flowers at last. Today was also our son Adam's Birthday, he would have been 26 ...........We bought him a nice lavender that will sit in front of the small walled garden at the side of the house.

As you can see the flowers were beautiful and numerous and again it was a pleasure just to take your time, walking amongst the displays looking and making the occasional purchase.........

You have to allow plenty of time to get around these local events, not just to see all the flowers but to chat and meet friends on the way. It took us about half an hour to travel one stretch of about ten meters, without seeing any flowers! We had bought so much that we had to take it back to the car in two goes, stopping for a drink in Francette's in between trips.......it has to be done! Local economy and all that.

Fete des fleurs at L' Abbaye Nouvelle.........

Another fete today, May is full of them, this one was at the old abbey on the way to Gourdon. Specialist growers from around the region fill the grassed areas around the abbey with their plants......

roses , lavenders, herbs, vegetables, shrubs, climbing plants, plants for shade, plants for sun, plants for fun, they where all there.

We bought some Lavenders and a Salvia 'Royal Bumble' and some Begonias.

This is one way to get your plants back to the car!