Brocantes and birthdays

Hello everyone

A little late this week (sorry), but I hope you have had a lovely week wherever you are?

Our week has included a birthday and 2 visits to brocantes, a luxury – firstly to go out and secondly I do love a good wander around a brocante. We have also had a UPS nightmare, still not resolved but to counter that Max is finally in the health system. Hooray!! To crown that his Carte Vitale arrived on Friday morning. Finally a tick can go against that job! We also did some very satisfying pruning but much more exciting, we have unearthed a slight mystery in the garden. A well, a pond, a water reservoir of some description?

I mentioned this discovery last week (see blog post: The story continues). We knew this was in the garden but didn’t know what it was. Last weekend we started clearing the area, partly so that Max could put some chicken wire over the grill to stop the kittens falling in, partly because we have been meaning to have a proper look at this for ages. There always seems to be something else to do first, but not last weekend. So we removed the cover, originally on hinges and attached by a chain, although now rusted off. After some back-breaking clearing of dead leaves and sludge and wood, we realised it went down a bit further than we had thought. Max went back to do more clearing mid-week and removed a lot of stones – is it another well? Is it something to do with the possible old washhouse (ancien lavoir) below the wall? Who knows but it is fascinating, although not that attractive at the moment. We will continue to dig more out to see if it has a bottom or if it turns out to be a filled-in well.

UPS – where can I start? Actually I am not going to bore you with the annoying detail. Suffice to say a two day delivery on an important package has so far taken 17 days. It arrived in Paris on 4^th March and got stuck. No contact from UPS as to why, when I called them Brexit was cited as the reason. It turns out after many calls that it was stuck in customs and needed a further piece of paper. The piece of paper they wanted was actually inside the package but they would not open it to find the critical document unless I paid them 40€. We managed to solve the problem by e-mailing a photo of the document they needed, at no charge, except for my fraying temper. Apparently it is now finally released and was on its way, but late on Friday afternoon we had a new email saying there was duty to pay on it and no delivery would take place until the payment was made. No mention of how to pay. Great service!!!! I could probably have walked to the UK and back to collect it… This sunset yesterday evening cheered me up though!

Tuesday was Max’s birthday. Last year his birthday marked the announcement in France of the first lockdown, starting the following day. A year on and whilst not in lockdown we are still on a 6pm to 6am curfew. Things are not going well in France at the moment, pandemic wise. Numbers are high and there is a resistance to lockdown again. Having said that last night the Prime Minister announced that Paris and a number of other areas where locking down from Friday for a month, but curfew was changing to 6am to 7pm (instead of 6pm). Sometimes I wonder whether we should have relocated to New Zealand, where they have managed to deal very effectively with Covid. Of course I don’t really mean that and we are glad to be in France, but …..

This year Max was treated to a relaxing birthday, tea in bed and a bit of a lie-in while I did breakfast for us, and the rescue animals. We decided to go out for the afternoon. Not something that happens much now apart from to walk the dog or go to the market. We planned to visit a brocante in Albi that we hadn’t known about until recently and then have a wander, suitably masked and socially distanced (although not from each other), around Albi. A brocante can be a flea market but more often is a place (shop/warehouse) full of antique and not so antique bits and pieces – junk shop to some but enchanting to me. This brocante was quite something. Tucked away near one of the hospitals, a warehouse filled to the rafters with treasures. Two lovely dogs greeted us and, given that we obviously smell of dog and kittens to them, kept us waiting to enter the warehouse while they had a good sniff! We went around the warehouse twice, once the wrong way as we missed the arrows! We saw hundreds of chairs piled high, beautiful old armoires – heaven knows how anything leaves without the whole place having to be emptied to be able to move it! Towards the end of the second tour, I spied something down a narrow corridor in between 4 very large old cupboards. It was a fontaine murale and lavabo– a wall-mounted type of water fountain and wash basin from times gone by.

They were used for washing hands when running water was less common in homes. A long time ago, when we were first house hunting, we saw the details of a beautiful house in the Gers with one of these, along with many other fabulous features including a stone above the front door with Zoí carved into it. Zoí means life in Greek – such a wonderful thing to put above a front door. Whilst we never found out why the engraved stone was there and sadly the house was not to be – slightly out of our budget, both the stone and the water fountain have stuck with me ever since. We have looked at quite a few of these fountains in various brocantes, but I have to say this is the prettiest one I have seen, but also very understated. I don’t know how old it is but it is in great condition. As it was Max’s birthday and it was on offer for a very good price, we bought it. No immediate plan for where to put it – perhaps it will have to become a sanitising station! So many wonderful things to buy at this brocante – we were really quite restrained – for now!

We thoroughly enjoyed our lovely wander around familiar streets in Albi. It is sad to see all the cafés and bars still closed. It must be so stressful for the owners. For us, in spite of not being able to people watch from a café, it was a treat to be out and about. We also managed to make it home by 6pm on the dot! So no curfew breaking. We had a fabulous bottle of local pink fizz from Chateau Bourguet. It was the first time we had tried it – a little too drinkable! Also lovely that it comes from our nearest Gaillac producer. We had their rosé as one of the wines at our wedding which is also very good. We keep saying we must go for a visit. One for the list. Remember the nut roast from Christmas (see blog post: 12 Days of Christmas Recipes: Day 3)? We made that again – Max’s choice – just as delicious in March as December and so easy.

The birthday boy was treated to my shaky piano playing of Happy Birthday, at the moment the only tune I know, and a really delicious tarte aux framboises (not homemade I am sorry to say – I was too busy brocante shopping)!

On Friday afternoon we had our second brocante visit of the week. Le Chien Vert (the Green Dog) in Albi is a firm favourite of ours. This weekend the owner is having a déstockage – a clear-out. Obviously we had to go… We persuaded some friends to come too and we had a very happy hour exploring every corner of the warehouse, socially distanced and masked of course. We then realised that everything was half price. It could have been expensive as there were lots of gorgeous things there. In the end we just came away with a bargain marble-topped coffee table and a couple of essential door handles.

It is very cold again – a long winter this year. I am getting a little tired of putting on at least 5 layers every day. Today, as with many days, I have 2 thermal vests on and several sweaters! However the sun is shining, there are signs of Spring everywhere and warmer days will be here soon enough.

On Thursday I was on a day’s training again to revisit all things about running a business in France. The kitchen was so cold in the morning I thought I might solidify a bit like my cleanser, which incidentally now lives in the kitchen and is back to normal (see blog post: Proper Introductions). I am pleased to say I survived the course and even asked questions. The guy running the day was very helpful and also kindly checked in through the day to make sure I wasn’t totally lost in French accounting terminology. The kittens also popped by from time to time, but mainly stayed by the fire.

My eldest son suggested I add a positive thought to my blog each week. I like to think I am quite positive, although I probably go on a bit about the cold in the house! I was always the eternal optimist – bit battered around the edges at the moment with all that is happening in the world (and the cold) but still optimistic. The positive for this week is taken from a very sweet little book called The Pocket Book of Positives (published by Arcturus Publishing Ltd):

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it (Confucius)

Over the last few weeks, we have also been exploring the culinary uses for carrot tops, radish leaves, etc., instead of sending them straight to the compost bin. Interested? The kittens seem to be! More on this and the recipes we have tried next week.