Normandy - The Place to Visit in 2012

Posted by Rosie

According to today's Telegraph Travel, the top place for value to visit in Europe in 2012 is our very own Normandy!

Quote:

"Normandy for value
 

In these difficult times, travellers will be looking above all for good value and security. The country that is likely to benefit most – apart from Britain, perhaps – is likely to be France, and nowhere more so than Normandy. You can take the car there on the ferry for £100 return, or less; you can travel via Paris on Eurostar in half a day, and there's greater variety in this wonderful region than in anywhere else I can think of. 

It has some of the best beaches and most beautiful countryside in France. There are sophisticated resorts (Deauville and Trouville) scenic ports (Honfleur and Barfleur) and seaside villages (Etretat and Pourville) and there is the wild and rocky west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula. 

There are world-class art galleries in Rouen and Le Havre, and excellent ones in Dieppe and Honfleur – not to mention Monet's garden and a string of other associations with the Impressionists. There are great medieval churches and cathedrals in Fécamp, Rouen and Mont St Michel. And I haven't even mentioned the Bayeux Tapestry, the cheese, the cider, the Calvados, the golf, the sailing, William the Conqueror, the Normandy landings… 

If you are searching for value and variety in 2012, look no further. 

Getting there: brittany-ferries.co.uk and eurostar.com. "

Do you know what - I think I agree :-)

Skateboarders!

Ben

Tom and Ben had asked for skateboards (amongst other things) for Christmas and we duly obliged. Ben was so excited at getting a skateboard that after discovered he had got one he just stood there and bounced up and down for a few minutes.

Boxing Day morning at some unearthly hour all we could hear echoing through the house was this thump, thump, thump.
 'Ben, what are you doing?  I shout from our bedroom.
 'Well practising turns on my skateboard' came the reply.
 'Ben, it is; a) early in the morning and we were still asleep and b) there are other planets to do these things on!'
 'Sorry' squeaks a little voice.
'Grrrrrrr'

Tom

Therefore on, a damp, cold  and foggy, Tuesday morning Sally and I took the boys to the local park, which also has a skateboard area.  For the next couple of hours they practised away.  They started on the path and then down a very slight slope.  Ben, more so than Tom, thought it would be a case of jump on the board and off I go. He got quite frustrated.  In the meantime Tom worked away at it and was soon getting the basics.

Ben's Derrière

In the skateboard area we found a steeper slope and they were soon zipping down it, falls and all.   Tom had a bit of a crashing fall which put him off for a while - a lovely grazed leg!  Ben then progressed to the ramp and was, by now, getting his balance sorted and starting to turn.  Tom, somewhat nervously, joined him and was just getting his confidence back by the time we had to leave.

Now we are getting nagged constantly for another session skateboarding - hopefully on not such a damp, cold and foggy morning. Oh, and I did have a go and I think the photo speaks for itself, plus the bruised backside.  Also I do not want any more broken bones!

And Me

We May Have Overdosed On...........

Professional Masterchef!

Fish Starter

We decided to go away for Christmas Day - well sort of.  We moved into the gite for the day and had our Christmas lunch in there.  There was a variety of reasons for this. Firstly, our house is in the process of having works done on it and has cables etc. hanging down everywhere.  Secondly we do not have a proper living room, whereas the gite does, and lastly it seemed a good idea and keeps the gite in use.

A Christmas tree and decorations were put up, the fire lit and off we went.  There was a little to-ing and fro-ing with presents, dishes and bottles but overall it was excellent.  I had somehow volunteered to cook the lunch this year (anything to get out of the washing up) and set to.  I must admit I did have help from Rosie and Sally in the cooking of some of the dishes and the preparation of vegetables etc.

Our menu was;

 

Fish Gourmand Starter

Trou Normande (Apple Sorbet with Calvados)

Roast Chicken 

Roast & Fresh Vegetables

Chestnut Stuffing & Bread Sauce

Christmas Gourmand

Christmas Gourmand

I must admit that most of the starter was bought but the desert was mainly home made. All of us find that after a big roast dinner eating Christmas Pudding is too much and I hit on the idea of having some form of Christmas Gourmand.  Café Gourmand is a common desert in restaurants here, and is usually made up of a coffee, crème caramel, a tart and cream.  Our Christmas Gourmand consisted of a small Christmas Pudding and a filo mince tart, a glass of fromage blanc and strawberry sauce, a skewer of fresh fruit (all made by Rosie), a little chocolate and a squirt of crème - with a choice of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. It worked a treat and made a very pleasant end to our meal.

The boys gave me good marks for my presentation but some of the flavours let me down.  On well - better luck next year.  And the slates plates - well we had ours before they appeared on Masterchef.  In fact I was going to use roof slates but we then found them on sell in various shops - it looks like they are a bit in fashion at the moment.

We hope you all had a good Christmas and wish you all the best for 2012.

That's Handy

Yesterday I had my appointment at Caen hospital and, after the usual long wait,  my hand was given the all clear.  I thought I was going to have to be in the cast for at least another two weeks but I was told there was no need. Now it is a case of strengthening up the hand, wrist and little finger again.


And it is much easier to use the keyboard, without the cast hitting the keys and changing everything and finding some interesting short cuts.   So I'll have to find something else to blame the speling misteakes on!!

Les Recettes de l'Ecole

 Posted by Rosie

This year, as a means of raising funds for the school trip to Futuroscope in April, the children have compiled and sold a recipe book which we received yesterday. Out of the 57 recipes brought in by pupils and teachers, 17 are starters, 13 are main courses and the remaining  27 are puddings or cakes ... and 8 of these are variations of chocolate cake - no real surprise there then!

Ben asked me to find him a recipe for Gingerbread Men (petits hommes en pain d'épice). Great - except it includes the very English "Golden Syrup". Luckily this can be bought in the English section of various supermarkets along with Gales Lemon Curd, Robinsons Barley Water, Frey Bentos Steak and Kidney Pies in a tin and Rowntrees Jelly. I do wonder what the French think we English like to eat.  

Tom wanted to do a typically English main dish and after a few ideas where translating the recipe would have been too hard we came up with "Toad in the Hole" = "Crapeau dans le Trou"! Actually thinking about it that might explain why the French have such a negative view of our food with recipes purporting to contains toads!

I have no idea if anyone will try our English recipes but I do hope so. I may give a "Fondant au Chocolat" a go as having watched many a chef on Masterchef prepare this dessert I would like to see if I could successfully make one.

Comment Moderation

Posted by Rosie

Recently we have been plagued by an increasing number of spam comments on the blog. To stop these comments slipping through we've decided to moderate incoming comments before they are published. We will still allow anonymous comments as I know some of you prefer this (we even know who some of you are!) but obvious spam will not find it's way onto the blog.


If some-one could now be so kind as to post a comment I can check the moderation is actually working. Many thanks and farewell all ye spammers.

Christmas Illuminations

 I picked up a leaflet in a local shop about 'Concours des Villes et Villages illuminés' (Competition for Cities and Villages illuminated) last week and so on Saturday evening we set out to have a tour of some of the lights.

Two of our local towns, Conde sur Noireau and Vassy, we know put on an excellent display and Vassy is especially good this year. We passed through villages that have made a great effort and it's little wonder they win prizes.  There were lots of oohs and aahs from the back of the car.

Then we eventually arrived in a village called Beauchene, which we'd heard puts on a spectacular display, and it was amazing. There were lights along the streets and then you go around the corner to see the church and churchyard aglow.  A field next to the church is full of lit up animations, for example a blacksmith shoeing a horse.  It was all good fun and very well done.

BeauChene Illuminations

We were slightly delayed on our tour as en route we got a puncture and then the jack broke, so we had to flag down a passing motorist, therefore it wasn't long before small boys were braying with hunger.  We cut the tour short and headed to the town of Flers, again, going through illuminated villages.  As we drove into one village the lights were made like stage curtains over the road, so you drove through.

We stopped in Flers and had a lovely meal before heading home. And my favourite of all the Christmas lights was this one!

My Favourite

7 years ago today ...

Posted by Rosie

Ben and Tom had their Christmas play at Nursery. No prizes for guessing who did NOT want to be a Christmas Star although Tom was a very jolly Father Christmas :-) 

Christmas 2004

Physalis

Posted by Rosie

Having a polytunnel means I can successfully grow more tender plants here in Normandy than might otherwise be possible. For me that has included 2 plants from the Physalis family, namely Tomatillos and Cape gooseberries.  To be honest I had never heard of tomatillos until I saw them in a seed catalogue although I did know the more common cape gooseberries (also sold as goldenberry and usually at exorbitant prices in some supermarkets).


Anyway tomatillos were the first I tried. They are like the big brother of cape gooseberries existing as either green or purple fruits in the characteristic papery case. I planted out 6 plants and they grew ... and grew ... and grew and then fruited abundantly. Far too abundantly it turned out especially when we discovered that whilst we didn't dislike the fruit they certainly weren't our favourites. Roasted and made into a salsa they were quite pleasant and I made passable jams and chutneys from them. However, this hardly made a dent in the bucketfuls that I had harvested. "Never mind," I thought, "I'll chuck them to the pigs."


Question - Do pigs like tomatillos?
Answers on a post card but I will give you a clue - the answer begins with N.


So I lobbed them on the compost heap. Ho hum. Warning. Tomatillo seeds survive all sorts of hot and cold conditions on the heap and freely self-seed the when you later spread the compost on your veg patch. 3 years later I have not sown a tomatillo yet I am still weeding them out of the veg garden. Grrr.


Cape Gooseberries have however been a lot more successful and a couple of days ago I cut back  the plants and harvested what turned out to be 1.6kgs of de-husked fruits. Once removed from their husk they don't keep long so I did a quick Internet search and it seemed I had 2 main choices of what to do with them. Chocolate dipped fruits or jam. Anyone who knows me, knows that I love chocolate but I think even I would have trouble eating 1.6kgs of dipped cape gooseberries ...  so jam it was. It's turned out a lovely colour and tastes both sweet and tart so is a very pleasing addition to my now groaning shelves of preserves.

Cape Gooseberry Harvest 2011

Last year I managed to overwinter one cape gooseberry plant under 3 payers of fleece and kept 4 young seedlings alive in the house. I'm hoping to do the same again this year with even more plants and sell the excess at the Easter Boot Fair I do. They are quite an expensive plant to buy and are a bit difficult to raise from seed. Also, looking at a couple of supermarket websites, had I wanted to buy 1.6kgs in the UK it would have cost me between £16.00 and £32.00/€18.00-€36.00!! Maybe I should take a jar of the jam with me for people to taste!

A Visit from the Firemen

Posted by Rosie

Don't worry, we weren't on fire nor in need of urgent medical assistance nor were any of the cats stuck up a tree. Instead this was our annual "firemen-flogging-you-a-calender-visit".  Now, whilst having a calender showing off lots of fire engine pictures may not be my first choice for a wall adornment this is something I really do not mind paying for. Many of the fireman and women who man our local fire-station at Vassy are volunteers, putting their lives at risk to keep us safe, including among them I have just seen, our family doctor. We are one of the few remaining regions in France where they will come and remove wasp and hornet nests for free (a service we have used before) whilst also attending all fires and road accidents in the region. I think these facts alone warrant a few Euros spent each year on a calender (which Ben has already asked to put up on his wall).


Although thinking about it, I wonder if they would sell more calenders if they were to include a picture of say, George Clooney in a fireman's costume .......?


(I did try and find a picture ladies but I'm afraid I failed miserably so you will have to make do with this one of Fireman Sam instead. Sorry!)