26 May 2018

Pas de voisins ce weekend



There will be almost no one on our end of the hamlet this weekend, it seems — just us, a dog, and two cats. Of course part-time neighbors might show up if the weather stays nice. But for the time being we have five empty houses all around us. Neighbors are "fleeing"  to the east and west, mainly to spend time with relatives. And it's not even a holiday weekend here in France.









Our neighbor across the street asked us if we would take care of her cat while she's away, until next Wednesday or Thursday. She's the neighbor who said back in 2010, when Bertie first came on the scene, that he had scratched her. She's gone to Annecy to spend some time with the cousin who also said Bertie had scratched her back in about 2013 or 2014.




The neighbor's cat, an 11-year-old female called Chana, scratched Walt yesterday when he went over to feed her. It's just a small scratch. Our job is to go feed Chana and let her out for the day each morning. In the evening, we go over again, let her back inside, and feed her again. If she isn't waiting at the back door when we go over there, the neighbor said Tant pis ! — Chana will just have to spend the night outdoors. And by the way, it turns out that the neighbor has been feeding Bertie regularly for the last few months.



The nights are warm and basically dry right now. We did have a short, light shower last night, though. The thermometer reads close to 17ºC this morning — that's 62 or 63 in ºF. I'll go to the market after a while for strawberries and asparagus, and maybe something like saucisses de Toulouse or boudin noir for today's lunch. 



Yesterday's lunch was meatloaf sandwiches using that latest loaf of pain de mie I made, with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. I sautéed some potatoes. Today I plan to check at the Pâtisserie du Château in Saint-Aignan, which is actually a boulangerie nowadays, to see if any of their weekend pain de mie is available. I'd like to taste it and see how it compares to the loaves I've been making.


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The photos here are some
close-ups of flowers that I
took a couple of days ago
around the Renaudière
hamlet and vineyard.
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17 comments:

  1. Lovely photos of lovely flowers. I'm sure your pain de mie is better than the baker's.

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    1. Le bonlanger n'en fait plus ! That's what the clerk at the Pâtisserie du Château told me a few minutes ago. When I said I had been told in April that they made pain de mie on Saturday mornings, he said yes, they did, but no longer. So I have no regrets about buying the Pullman bread pan with a lid.

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    2. BoNlanger! that's a good one.

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    3. Its not Bon anymore since the pain de mie is discontinued!

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    4. Odd that it's hard to find. Is pain de mie considered old-fashioned or something?

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  2. Our cats died several years ago -- I do miss them, but not enough to take in a new one. It seems that all our neighbors ended up feeding them. This did not lead them to not eating in our kitchen, too. There are now two tom cats that want to claim our yard as personal territory. They are beautiful, big cats. I think one comes in from the front, the street side and the other comes over fences at the back. We do not want either of them to stay with us so we do not feed them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bertie still eats all the food we give him. And he empties his kibble bowl once in a while. The fact is, all the same, he has lost weight since winter and looks very slim. That's his pattern: he bulks up and the fall and slims down in the spring. At least we know that the neighbor is no longer so afraid of Bertie.

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    2. Maybe his fur gets thicker in the winter and thinner in the summer, since he is outside? Anyway, great photos of the flowers. Love the roses and wondering what the yellow one is?

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    3. Hi David,
      The yellow flower is Hypericum or Millepertuis in French.

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    4. Thanks, chm. ;-)

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    5. It's called Saint John's Wort in English.

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  3. Hello there, I haven't posted here before since i came across your blog about a month ago, and am finding it so interesting to read and enjoy your adventures about life in rural France. And the recipes...and your beautiful Tasha dog.
    My friend and her husband moved to Brittany in February to try out life a la Francais for 6 months, an itch they'd been wanting to scratch for some years! However its rather like the English Lake District where they are...., (very wet) so home to Blighty later in the year. The natives are lovely though! So it has been a happy time.
    Ciao for now, happy cooking!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The key to being able to live here is to speak French passably, or to learn it as fast as you can. Otherwise, you can end up living in an anglophone ghetto. And you can find it very frustrating to try to communicate with tradespeople, bank employees, insurance agents, etc.

      I used to live in Normandy, and I considered that area when Walt and I decided to relocate ourselves to France from California. But I know how damp and chilly the weather up there is, so I dismissed the idea. Brittany must be similar. The Loire Valley is damp enough for me. Too damp for much of the year in many years.

      Thanks for your nice comment.

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  4. Times like this, I wish we had Smell-O-Vision :)
    I am surrounded by cats. It is nice. I am officially the Old Woman with Cats ..

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    Replies
    1. I worked with a woman in California who rescued kittens and cats. She now lives in Naples FL, the other end of the state from you. Anyway, when she adopted her fourth cat she up up a sign on her office door saying something like "When you get your fourth cat, you really pass into a different realm of existence." Hope you are doing well, C.

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