Well! What a very busy week we have had. So busy in fact that we needed to take over and manage part of a friends Gite complex to accommodate extra guests. All our guests have eaten in too so that has been great fun. It is though a half six start and a midnight finish. No worries we have a week end off and more guests on Monday.
I have made an old pantry into a kitchen as it gives me somewhere to Prep for Jane and also I can experiment with my bread making. This now also frees up the main kitchen for Jane. Some old boys when they retire have a shed I have a kitchen!
Jane cooks beautiful food and considering she is vegetarian she manages to get all her meat dishes perfect. Good knowledge of how to season is the trick she tells me.
The internet and e mails have made the world so much smaller. I have just received a lovely parcel from Marks and Spencer with all sorts of clothes in. If they all fit it will be fine but if they don't, well we will see.
It's our thirtieth wedding anniversary next October and we have been trying to decide where or what to do. We even contemplated the Orient express down to Venice but have now decided on a beautiful hotel on the Amalfi coast. We would rather stay somewhere expensive and memorable for seven days than somewhere that's all right for fourteen. Time to start saving!
Christmas round the corner and lots to do as we have friends for Christmas.
Trying to get more alterations done to the living side of our B&B as we are spending more time in that side. Just really trying to make it more cozy really. Time and money as always!
Off now to get my daughter from a friends. Taxi service as usual at week ends.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
The weather and stuff!
The weather here in Bretagne has just been amazing. We went to Lamballe to get our shopping for all of our guests next week and there were lots of people doing what the French do best, it's an art form, sitting outside in the square with café and cake just watching the world go by. Tonight though it is more like winter as it's cold and very foggy.
We have so many guests in our B&B over the next two weeks which will be hard work but great fun. After this flurry of madness and mayhem we are disappearing to Paris. We just love Paris. Our first visit was after nine years of living here. The trouble is that where we live there are so many places to visit right on our door step and the coast is only thirty five minutes away so we never kind of got there.
We can't believe that Christmas is just around the corner. We have friends for Christmas lunch. It has been a tradition for us to go for a blow on the beach at Val André every Christmas Eve and back home after to a big log fire. It will be the same this year too.
Christmas is very different in France and is all about family on Christmas Eve. Most of the French have a big family get together and eat at midnight and give presents mainly to the children. The children don't get given anything like children get in the UK. Christmas festivities are all over after Christmas Day as they don't have boxing day or extended holidays and it's all over quickly and back to work. I suppose in reality it is more like 'When I was a lad' A sock with a tangerine and sweets in and if I was lucky a dinky toy and a book. Hey ho happy days!
I ramble on when I should be in bed, good night!
We have so many guests in our B&B over the next two weeks which will be hard work but great fun. After this flurry of madness and mayhem we are disappearing to Paris. We just love Paris. Our first visit was after nine years of living here. The trouble is that where we live there are so many places to visit right on our door step and the coast is only thirty five minutes away so we never kind of got there.
We can't believe that Christmas is just around the corner. We have friends for Christmas lunch. It has been a tradition for us to go for a blow on the beach at Val André every Christmas Eve and back home after to a big log fire. It will be the same this year too.
Christmas is very different in France and is all about family on Christmas Eve. Most of the French have a big family get together and eat at midnight and give presents mainly to the children. The children don't get given anything like children get in the UK. Christmas festivities are all over after Christmas Day as they don't have boxing day or extended holidays and it's all over quickly and back to work. I suppose in reality it is more like 'When I was a lad' A sock with a tangerine and sweets in and if I was lucky a dinky toy and a book. Hey ho happy days!
I ramble on when I should be in bed, good night!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
La Vieille Grange
From Theo and Jane.
Well I have been dragged screaming and kicking into the 21 century. This very Silver Surfer is just blogging for the very first time to say thank you to one and all who have stayed with us this year. We must have done quite a lot right as a lot of you have re-booked for next year. Thank you so much as we have enjoyed every moment of having you stay.
Bread Oven
Next year we are hoping that I have had time to renovate our own Wood fired bread oven and can do our bread making and baking demonstrations here and show our guests how it is done. It's a very important part of French history that is disappearing at a very fast rate. People are sadly knocking them down when they renovate for the stone. Most of the farms and little Hamlets had their own wood fired bread ovens which was a real part of the community. After the bread and cakes were baked they would then put their meats in the oven and leave it for the rest of the time until the oven had cooled down, a bit like a slow cooker. There is no other taste like it.
My 'Office' at the moment is a bread oven in the next village where my Friend Jean-Paul and I run it as a charity showing children, tourists and local French people how to make and bake the humble but important French Boule. My claim to fame is that I have taught the television chef James Martin how it is done the 'French way'
My office.
Well I have been dragged screaming and kicking into the 21 century. This very Silver Surfer is just blogging for the very first time to say thank you to one and all who have stayed with us this year. We must have done quite a lot right as a lot of you have re-booked for next year. Thank you so much as we have enjoyed every moment of having you stay.
Bread Oven
Next year we are hoping that I have had time to renovate our own Wood fired bread oven and can do our bread making and baking demonstrations here and show our guests how it is done. It's a very important part of French history that is disappearing at a very fast rate. People are sadly knocking them down when they renovate for the stone. Most of the farms and little Hamlets had their own wood fired bread ovens which was a real part of the community. After the bread and cakes were baked they would then put their meats in the oven and leave it for the rest of the time until the oven had cooled down, a bit like a slow cooker. There is no other taste like it.
My 'Office' at the moment is a bread oven in the next village where my Friend Jean-Paul and I run it as a charity showing children, tourists and local French people how to make and bake the humble but important French Boule. My claim to fame is that I have taught the television chef James Martin how it is done the 'French way'
My office.
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