Last days

me, outside Lou Peyrol

Last days of holidays are always busy and always sad, but there’s also the readiness to go home. That’s how it is for me; I’ve enjoyed my three weeks in France but now I’m starting to miss my garden, my routine of work and being touch with friends.  So, we’ve decided what we want to wear for the journey home, packed the rest into the car, and swept out the mill to leave it clean and tidy for Jenny and David.

Last night we went over to Lou Peyrol again and this time we both had Kir Royales as an aperitif. We never have blackcurrent liqueur with champagne once we're home, but it is lovely to do it now and then, and I think Lou Peyrol is our favourite restaurant. The chef manages to get such intense flavours into the food that each course is a delight, from the amuse bouche and the tomato foam with a miniature savoury tart to the  ravishing desserts. Bill tried the ballotine de canard on my recommendation and groaned in pleasure. As it was our last visit for a year, he decided to treat himself and go for the steak and declared it the best steak he’d ever eaten, while I had the delicious monkfish on a bed of black rice and chorizo.  My chocolate dessert with roasted hazel nuts was the kind of heavy semi-solid mousse that sticks to your teeth, and Bill had a vacherin with strawberries and red fruit coulis…



Specials at Lou Peyrol

In spite of the Kirs and the wine, I drove home this time, hoping all the farmers driving enormous tractors pulling flat beds loaded with hay bales had gone home to bed, because they take up all the road and it's take to the heather time for any car in their path.

On the way we finally saw two deer grazing in the middle of a field. We thought the holiday was going to pass without seeing any at all, but these two saw the car, sped off and leapt the hedge into the forest. Wildlife has been scarce; we haven’t seen Monsieur Renard at all, the squirrel only once, though we caught him on our wildlife camera. Some creature left quite a large turd on the five-bar gate yesterday morning and I couldn’t believe it was the squirrel, though it is on his route across the house roof, down the bolly uprights and along the fence and gate to the walnut tree.

So tomorrow the mill will be quiet again, the grass will grow high and all the creatures will relax because those interfering humans will have gone, gone gone.



Ballantine of duck

Ballantine of duck, wine-soaked pear and an apple and apricot chutney

Our meal at Lou Peyrol (http://restaurant-chambres-dordogne-perigord.com/?page_id=10) was as good as we’d hoped and the wine Fiona recommended rendered me unfit to drive back to the mill! We didn’t notice until the bottle was two thirds consumed that it was 14.5% proof. Dh had already consumed a Kir Royale, too. Just shows what a hard head he has. We’ve booked again for next Monday – same day, same time, same table. Next time I shall drive us home.

We slept late next morning, and were not the brightest sparks around camp for an hour or two. By the time we were really awake, it was too hot to go out on bikes, or walking, or even to stay in the sun. We did a bit of gardening in the shade under the trees and soon got hot and sticky. After 5pm we tried a short bike ride along the valley to the old church, but it was still too hot, so we cut the ride short and came back to eat dinner on the bolly. The only strange thing in the whole day was that I found half a mouse. Just half a stride off the bolly, little grey hind paws pathetic in the air, a small grey mouse had been neatly severed. If I’d done it with a cleaver, I couldn’t have done a neater job. But what would attack and half a mouse? The head half I never found.

Wednesday is, if anything, even hotter. The forecast is for 31 degrees today and 37 tomorrow, then thunderstorms on Friday. After my long sleep last night, this morning I was awake around five. I finally got up at five minutes to six, when it was just beginning to get light, and re-edited a chapter of the first Matho story. I’m adding more oomph wherever I can, and it is really pulling together. Certainly I’m more certain of Matho’s character than I was when I first wrote the book, so I know how far I can push him now. I'm also finding little inconsistencies of plot. A'hem! Always, always edit your work half a dozen times!

Eating out

Yesterday we had three hours of sunshine, which saved my sanity. We also went to a local restaurant avec chambres, called Auberge Lou Peyrol, for a meal.

It is in the small village of St Marcel du Perigord and it's run by Guy and Fiona, who met in Zermatt when working at one of the big hotels there.

Fiona is English and Guy, French, so we're not afraid to try out our poor French, knowing that there is a menu Anglais if we need it.

The terrace has been closed for three weeks due to the constant rain, which means a big difference in income for them. Eating on terraces or the street in towns is so common in France, and usually adds hugely to the covers. We see folorn tables and chairs outside eateries in England now - but it is only because smokers have to be accommodated somewhere!

Our meal was lovely, as expected, full of small surprises. A frothy something or other in a small glass to tease the appetite, then foie gras for dh and saumon d'Ecosse pour moi, followed by cochon for him and chicken for me. Creme brulee with strawberries for dessert, and a small glass with strawberry liquer beneath yogurt with the coffee.

We didn't want expresso, nor a double expresso, so I asked for cafe Americano, which brought recognition. Here it is a cafe d'onger, I was told. (That is how it sounded, so I hope it is not spelled so very differently.) The name of the auberge translates as the cauldron or cooking pot. It's not in my French/English dictionary, just as I never found the word bolly, which is what the people of this region call a roofed terrace. Evidently lou is their equivalent of the definite article le or la.

So, with wine, l'addition was 102 euros.

Oddities

This picture of Bergerac missed the cut last night because my electricity supply was playing tricks. It shows one of the things I love about France - the odd mixture of old and new side by side. And how the old buildings are maintained and renovated. These people have chosen to put modern windows in, but lots choose to get the old style made new; then it becomes hard to tell sometimes, how old a building really is. Fontevraud is a bit like that; so much renovation work has been done it difficult to see what's old and what's "new." Some critics say that renovation means renewal in France. I can't make up my mind , and sway one way one day and the other the next.

I didn't get to describe the meal we had, but rather than bore you, I'll just describe dessert. Imagine a ball of stewed rgubarb inside a blob of fresh cream surrounded by halved strawberries and topped with a ginger "lid" about three inches across, wafer thin and studded with chopped nuts. Yum. The house is typical of the region and sits near the river in St Marcel.

Our wildlife continues to impinge on our lives here at the mill. This morning over breakfast coffee at the table I looked up and saw a mouse, bold as brass, scouting for crumbs around the sink unit twenty feet away. We watched it for two or three minutes. Dh was all for rushing over and doing goodness knows what, but I restrained him. 'Let's see where it goes.' Another half minute and it vanished over the end of the worktop and into the bowels of the dishwasher. We don't use the dishwasher, and anyway the owners of the mill are coming down soon and the entire old kitchen is to be ripped out and replaced. They know the mice are there. When they told us of this plan we jovially said mice would run in all directions, but Sam the labrador would sort them out. 'Oh no he won't,' said his owner, with a rueful laugh. 'He'll go behind you when he sees them.'

Then later, doing what you do in bathrooms, I wondered if my eyes were deceiving me. Coming in from the 31 degree glare outside, the little brown lump in the corner behind the door looked rather like a frog. I waited; my vision sharpened, and it was a frog. Crouched in the corner between the wall and the door, its a wonder it hasn't been squashed when the door opened. So dh put on his gardening gloves, retrieved said frog and we took it down to the stream and set it away. We don't know how long it has been trapped in the bathroom, as we haven't used the downstairs loo for about three days.

Bergerac and Lou Peyrol

The English have long associations with Bergerac and Aquitaine in general. In 1370 the town was given to John of Gaunt by the Black Prince and proved an exceptional source of revenue for him.

While it is perhaps tactful not to speak to the French of such things these days, it is interesting to think of those ancient battles fought beside La Dordogne so long ago. (I love the way the French give their rivers a feminine persona!). The river was open to sea-going vessels right through medieval times, and there was much trade in Wine. There still is! But it doesn’t leave by river these days.

We drove in around five-thirty as we’ve learned by experience that most shops in France close around midday and re-open mid-afternoon and stay open until about seven o’clock. You know the old saying about mad dogs and Englishmen going out in the midday sun? Well, it makes sense when you’re here. Walking around towns with the midday sun bouncing off the pale stone of the buildings is utter madness. The French certainly don’t do it, and so we don’t do it either. In the middle of a wet, rainy day in Newcastle, it seems peculiar, but here, when the temperature is 31 degrees, it all begins to make sense.

It was hot enough to make an hour and a half wandering around old haunts and sicovering new ones more than enough, and we headed back along the D32 towards St Marcel du Perigord with food in mind.

We were not disappointed. Imaginative, delicious food in a tranquil setting – who could ask for more? An amuse bouche, a pre-starter and then a salmon starter for me, followed by canard with green peas, beans and the tiniest mushrooms in a delicious sauce...m'mmm.

I drank the local wine sparingly because I had drawn the “drive back home” straw and I knew the roads home were one car width, twisty and hilly.

I saw one deer, which raced for cover before dh could get the camera out; he saw four more, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road to look. For us, seeing deer is rare. On our last trip to Scotland in February, we saw them

everywhere, and we know they exist around our home in the UK, but a sighting is rare, especially here, where there is so much land for them to hide in - and delightful.

Click for pictures and a link to Lou Peyrol


and here for pics provided by Bergerac Office de Tourisme.

Without power...

I love many things about France, but one thing I am learning to hate is the electricity supply. To be more precise, the supply in this house. Now, I know I should be tolerant and think about how old the mill is, and I do, I do! But … we bring adapters with us because the French use a totally different set of plugs etc etc to the UK, and some of said adapters work better than others.

Tonight I was merrily downloading today’s pics from my camera to my laptop when a message flashes up telling me the Power is Running Low. I look to my left where the laptop is plugged in to the mains supply, and the little green light that tells me the current is coming through is not there! I leap across the two yards to wiggle the adapter-plus-socket, and the green light reappears. I sigh with relief and sit down again just as the screen goes blank and the PC closes down.

Now I am wondering if I have a) lost all the pics on the camera b) lost anything on the pc c) and I’m cursing as I switch on again. It would be a pity if I lost the pics, because we’ve had a lovely day. Vergt market by nine o’clock and I’m sad to say it wasn’t as large as it used to be, and that is probably because the local Intermarche has upped its game. The vegetable and fruit prices in the market were higher than the supermarket, and there were more people buying in the latter than the former. Including me. I’m only a visitor; what I do is not going to change the habits of the French, but it seems as if they are voting with their purses.

Later in the day we drove in the opposite direction to Bergerac and walked around the town. It is old, and has un centre ville and un ville vieux down by the river. Naturally, I gravitate to the old town in whatever town or village I’m in. I love the mix of old and new. More detail on Bergerac tomorrow. We drove back to St Marcel and had dinner at Lou Peyrol and I’m sleepy now. Enjoy the pics of Vergt. (Remember, click to make them bigger) It is a small rural town with a population of 1, 614 people. That's small, and France is a big country. Well, it is if you are used to England.