Reflections

Hello Everyone

Early last week we were basking in 18°C sunshine, by Wednesday it was 6°C at best during the day. We had snow last week, briefly, a light dusting like icing sugar sprinkled on a cake, not really enough to say it had snowed, but pretty nonetheless and a new experience for the 4 rescue cats. They lasted outside for a while chasing snowflakes, trying to work out what the cold white stuff was that was settling on their whiskers. Then one by one they came back inside, the pads on their paws swollen with cold, fur damp, and they snuggled down by the roaring woodburner in the kitchen. Doting owners that we are, we even brought down extra chairs so that humans and cats could be comfortable!

Like everyone I expect, our Christmas decorations came down before Twelfth Night, much to the cats’ disappointment. They have enjoyed the novelty of having a tree in the house! Then came the job I usually put off, packing them all away. This time it was done sitting by the fire, a film on the TV and a glass of wine – a much better experience!

Epiphany brings another tradition in France – the cutting of the galette des rois. To round off a period of eating there is something else to eat! The galette des rois (The Kings’ Cake) is a flaky pastry confection traditionally filled with frangipane, although nowadays you can find them with a variety of tempting fillings. In the south of France it can also be a sweet brioche style cake studded with candied peel. We are lucky to be able to get both in our favourite boulangerie. Each cake comes with a crown and contains a hidden charm, known as la fève (literally and traditionally a bean – actually now a porcelain or plastic ornament). The cake is cut, with slices for each guest as well as one spare for the unknown visitor. Whoever finds the fève is king or queen for the day. This tradition dates back to the 14^th century and the galette des rois has been served on 6^th January in households across France since then to commemorate the arrival of the three kings at the manger.

Continuing on the subject of food, we have been working our way through a wide variety of cheeses while my Mother is staying with us. Perhaps partly to keep her morale up as it is so cold here and really quite boring for her, although I think she is enjoying the tea in bed each morning and sitting by the fire reading. She is hoping to get back to the UK but at the moment we are unable to drive her as travel to the UK can only be for absolutely essential reasons. But back to cheese. A firm favourite with us. I could probably eat it every day and not get tired of it. Possibly not the best idea health-wise but with a fresh baguette and some unsalted butter….! The choice at our tiny market is huge, with at least 4 different vendors. Some just sell local goats cheese, but two of the market stalls sell a wide variety and our lovely cheese seller often has a new one to recommend or a taste of something to tempt us. He very kindly gave my mother some Morbier for her birthday – much appreciated. He is always cheerful and enjoys a chat, but also mindful of what you are ordering to ensure you have a good spread for the cheeseboard. One week we chose a lot of brebis (sheep) cheese and were quickly reminded that we might like to add some chèvre (goat) and vache (cow) cheeses too, not to mention making sure we had a good mix of hard and softer cheeses! With such cold weather I am tempted to make a cheese fondue this week – very 1970s or ski season (maybe the snow prompted me), but delicious too.

Last weekend it rained and rained. Everywhere is saturated, water pouring down fields, carving channels into the slopes to create new streams. The delightful slurry area below our terrace is now an absolute quagmire – a fabulous view of a morning when opening the shutters to start a new day! Sarcasm aside, the view beyond is still amazing – you just have to avoid looking down! After much discussion over the weekend about this whole scenario, we are going to see how things progress over the coming year. This house, our tiny château, is lovely and we are far from done here – in so many ways, not least the renovation! Maybe the stylish chambres d’hôtes (B&B) won’t or can’t happen for now, but we are plotting what else we could do, as well as enjoying living in a rather large quirky old house.

A few weeks ago Max installed a couple of temporary radiators in the salon. What a difference. We bought them for the attic a while back, they are really quite stylish and look like pieces of slate – this works really well in the salon with the grey tiled floor. I actually sat in the salon at the weekend on a long phone call and didn’t freeze. It also gave me time to really look at the room, the worn old floor tiles that seem to hint at 2 different floors but that could be from water damage, the fireplace, the arched doorway, the hidden door, the panelling and imagine the room in use again. I am not sure I have sat in that room for so long since we bought the house, as it remains untouched and unlived in for now – merely a passage through to the tower end of the house with an occasional stop to attempt to improve my very slow piano learning. Of course there is masses to do, the water from the cellar seeps into the walls by the fireplace, so there is drying out to be done, rotten panelling to be replaced. Last year while cleaning the salon chimney, the chimney sweep told us there was a much bigger fireplace behind the current fireplace. How exciting! There is still the hidden door to open and whatever surprises that will bring – probably just spiders and rotten wood and lots of dust, but an adventure nonetheless.

On the subject of large fireplaces, we have several huge fireplaces in the house, one of which is in the kitchen and one in our bedroom. (Another is in the old kitchen – more about that another time). When I say huge, the height of the mantelpiece in the current kitchen is 1m 63cm, supported by very impressive wooden columns and 1m 26cm wide. The one in our bedroom is 1m 65cm high. They must have been magnificent when they were open fireplaces. Imagine the heat but also the amount of wood they must have needed to keep going every day. Was the fireplace in the salon the same size once? Who knows but hopefully we will get a chance to see what size it might have been and maybe open it up a little, whilst preserving the pretty grey marble surround.

As I said in the blog post at the end of 2021, changes are afoot again at Coffee and Chocolatines. January, for me, is a time to reorganise a bit, take stock and look forward to the year ahead. I like to make resolutions but this year decided to use January as a time to think about what I want to change or achieve in the year ahead as the last year was quite chaotic. This blog is no exception so I am taking some time to plan a little. I would love to hear what interests you, what you would like more of, less of…? I plan to continue with stories from our corner of the Tarn and the monthly seasonal food post as I love a spot of cooking. This month is all about citrus fruit and will be out at the weekend. The Places to Visit post is taking a short break as I actually need to visit some more places first and that has been a little challenging of late! Renovation projects are high on our list so you will start to see some visible progress finally. Having said that this week, now it has stopped raining, is all about clearing the extremely muddy driveway so we, and others, can drive in without skating around on the mud and leaves. Driveways on slopes are not ideal and this one is long and slopes towards the house so all the water runs down the length of the drive, bringing with it mud, debris and leaves just where you want to walk! (We have had a lot of rain lately).

So until a citrus flavoured blog at the weekend, I wish you well. Enjoy the week. We were promised sun yesterday but instead got freezing fog. Today the sun is out but it is -3°C. We are in for some bright crisp really cold weather. Everything in the garden is edged with frost. Max is off to put one of the radiators into our bedroom and I have work to do. The electrician arrives tomorrow to install the heated towel rails – what luxury that will be!

Take care and stay safe.

A bientôt

Ali xx

(Photos of galettes des rois courtesy of hervecuisine.com and mycuisine.com)