Category Archives: Lifestyle

Early Spring and Ponderings on our New Life

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It’s been the strangest winter. I don’t think the temperature has gone below zero more than a couple of times and there has been absolutely no sign of snow. As a result, spring seems to have come a couple of weeks early.

Our house at the moment, with pansies and bulbs on the railing, the last of the winter jasmin on the left and our evergreen honeysuckle on the right.
Our house at the moment, with pansies and bulbs on the railing, the last of the winter jasmin on the left and our evergreen honeysuckle on the right.

We are in Blois for a month this time, the longest period yet so it feels more permanent. Things are starting to get more organised but I’m still finding it hard to reconcile my translation work and doing more interesting things such as gardening.

Jean Michel cleaning the moss. Our new paving stones are waiting to be made flush with the ground.
Jean Michel cleaning the moss. Our new paving stones are waiting to be made flush with the ground.

Also, having one person working and the other free to do what he wants with his time is not easy. Not that Jean Michel is lazing around – quite the opposite. Among other things, he has chopped firewood, completed the electricity in our upstairs kitchen, made two roof ladders and cleaned the moss off one of the roofs.

Crocuses and pansies against the front fence
Crocuses and pansies against the front fence

But we are having to adjust to a different pattern. In Paris, Jean Michel gets up earlier than me during the week – often around 7, and has his breakfast alone. I get up around 8.30, get dressed, have a quick breakfast and am in my office by 9.

Primroses on the way up to our little wood
Primroses on the way up to our little wood

Here, if we get up at 8.30, I’m not sitting in front of my computer until closer to 10 because Jean Michel needs to take his time in the morning. I’ve been making an effort to get up at 8 but I only gain a half an hour and I’m tired! On intermittent fast days, it’s much easier as we skip breakfast. We’ve talked about it together and Jean Michel is also frustrated because he is a morning person and has the impression that he’s wasting his whole day if he doesn’t get up until eight (but he hasn’t suggested getting up earlier).

Our little wood full of daffodils
Our little wood full of daffodils

So I’m trying to schedule our two fast days for Monday and Friday and maybe I won’t eat on Wednesday mornings either. Then on the other two days, as soon as I’ve finished my breakfast I’ll leave him to it instead of taking time over tea together. The weekend’s not a problem of course.

Wild hyacinths
Wild hyacinths

Jean Michel also has a short nap after lunch and goes to sleep before I do at night, so all in all, I’m not getting enough sleep, and am exhausted! I hope we’ll have solved the problem soon. At least having a whole month in Blois means that we can get into better sync before the final move in October.

Pansies and bulbs
Pansies and bulbs

The fact that it rained most days last week didn’t help either. We were nice and wet by the time we finished the market on Saturday morning then spent the afternoon chasing after things like bottle racks and mats to scrape the mud off our shoes. By that evening we were feeling a little jaded.

View of Trinity Church from the top of the hill overlooking Vendome
View of Trinity Church from the top of the hill overlooking Vendome

However, Sunday dawned fine and sunny and after a leisurely breakfast, we drove to Vendome which is really pretty. Clouds came over around midday, to our disappointment. But by the time we had finished a very good lunch at Le Rond de Serviette, the sky was blue again and we walked up the hill to see the stunning panorama.

The daffodils I bought from the Red Cross stand on Place Colette and replanted
The daffodils I bought from the Red Cross stand on Place Colette in Paris and replanted in Blois

We arrived back home just in time for a late tea and macarons in front of the fire. It felt as though we were on holidays because it’s exactly the way we used to spend the day when we stayed in a gîte with a fireplace in winter before we bought Closerie Falaiseau.

Our local orchids are looking good. They'll bloom
Our local orchids are looking good. They’ll bloom in April.

Oh, and I nearly forgot – the annoying neighbours with the poultry yard have packed up, lock, stock, barrel and chickens. We couldn’t believe our luck! We expect that someone else will move in soon, perhaps at the end of the month. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Weekly Blogger Round-Up: Saxon Switzerland – Dying Overseas – Chinese New Year Treats

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This week’s Blogger Round-Up starts in Germany, in Saxon Switzerland, where Anda from Travel Notes & Beyond has inspired us to go on another cycling holiday this summer. Australian blogger Paula McInerney from Contented Traveller broaches the somewhat taboo subject of what happens if you die overseas while, on a less serious note, Adelina from Pack Me To, talks about all the wonderful goodies to eat at Chinese New Year. Enjoy!

Königstein – the Fortress of Saxon Switzerland

by Anda from Travel Notes & Beyond, the Opinionated Travelogue of a Photo Maniac, is a Romanian-born citizen of Southern California who has never missed the opportunity to travel

konigsteinFrom Bastei Rocks our trip continued to the town of Königstein. From atop the table hill bearing the same name, Königstein – Germany’s largest fortress – towers over the Elbe Valley and the Saxon Switzerland landscape. Rising 240 meters above the river, the 24 acres rock plateau offers stunning views that rival with the famous Balcony of Europe in Costa del Sol, Spain.

Festung Königstein (as the Germans call it) started in the early 13th century as a medieval castle belonging to the Bohemian kingdom. In the 1400s the castle fell into the hands of the Saxon rulers and was later transformed into a monastery. In the mid 1500s by the order of Augustus, Elector of Saxony, a deep well (152 m) was drilled through solid rock on the site creating an important condition for the construction of a fortress. Read more

What happens if you die overseas?

By Paula McInerney from Contented Traveller. When they are not living in Australia, she and her husband Gordon travel the world, trying out houseboats, tatami mats, cave houses and over water bungalows, with serendipity as their watchword.

The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893Strange conversations happen around our dinner table and one segued into what would happen if you died whilst overseas. Everyone’s response was varied, from leave me there, to bring me home. This then led into the conversation of whether people wanted to be buried or cremated and how they wanted their send off to be. Scattered over an ocean, under a tree in the bush, quickly and with no fuss, it all varied. It is worth discussing with your family and friends what you do want .. and around the dinner table is as good a place as any.

I myself think that if I died overseas just bury me there. Note the bury; I don’t want tot be cremated because it seems a bit too final. Yes, the derision at the dinner table was palpable but bad luck, I am entitled to my belief. Others wanted to be bought home to be buried, whilst some wanted to be cremated wherever, and their ashes bought home. Read more

The Best Part of Chinese New Year – the Food

by Adelina from Pack Me To, a Chinese American who’s been traveling for as long as she can remember and has lived in the Netherlands and Hungary. She loves telling stories, and eating and exploring her way around the world.

chinese-new-year-treatsHappy lunar new year! January 31 ushered in the year of the horse. The best part of Chinese New Year for me is of course the food! There are so many delicious treats to be had during this festive holiday. As previously explained, the Chinese are a superstitious group. There are certain foods that are eaten during the holidays which are supposed to bring good luck and prosperity in the new year. Plus, they all taste delicious, so why not?

The Meals

During the 15 day festival, there are a number of meals where family come together to eat. In my family, we have a meal on Chinese new year eve with my immediate family, and sometimes with my father’s side of the family, and on day 2 of the new year, we have a meal with my mother’s side of the family. I love Chinese New Year food so much that one year my flatmate and I attempted to cook a massive new year dinner while living in Budapest for 26 people! We were crazy or what?! Here are a few of the must have dishes gracing the table. Read more

Place de la République

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Place de la République
Place de la République

They’ve been fixing up Place de la République for ages but I only saw it finished very recently and I don’t see what they’ve really achieved, except for reducing traffic. It doesn’t look anything like the architectural sketches published by the Mairie de Paris.

But then, maybe the fact that I was feeling under the weather influenced me! This is my sixth day of LA GRIPPE (the flu) and hopefully my last. My translation work is way behind schedule so I’m sure you’ll understand why my posts this week are a little on the light side!

And before I go, a little video link provided by a reader on English accents and accents in English that I’m sure you’ll enjoy, courtesy of A Cup of Jo.

Photos of the Week – New Year and after

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Home made foie gras cooked in salt and 1990 vouvray followed by champagne in the beautiful handmade glasses we bought in Rothenburg many moons ago
Home made foie gras cooked in salt served with compote de vieux garçon and 1990 vouvray followed by champagne in the beautiful handmade glasses we bought in Rothenburg, Germany, many moons ago
Wreath made of boxwood and holly from the garden hanging on our Henri II bookcase for which I recently made curtains.
Wreath made of boxwood and holly from the garden hanging on our Henri II bookcase for which I recently made curtains.
One of our favourite bordeaux - a 1979 Saint Emilion, with the fireplace and Henri II leather covered chair in the background.
One of our favourite bordeaux – a 1979 Saint Emilion, with the côte de boeuf on the grill in the fireplace and a Henri II leather covered chair in the background.

Happy New Year 2014 & Five Resolutions

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This year we ARE sitting in front of a roaring fire in the renovated upstairs fireplace, unlike last year when we decided not to herald in the New Year until the renovation was finished. We finally lit our first fire on February 28 only to the discover it smoked. The problem was eventually solved in March when the roofer  opened up the top of the chimney. By then it seemed a little late to welcome in the New Year.

Celebrating New Year in front of the renovated fireplace
Celebrating New Year in front of the renovated fireplace on 31st December 2013

Having just reread my resolutions, plans and expectations for 2012, I see that I have failed miserably with the first, which was NO MORE RENOVATION until we move here permantly. Yes, well, I haven’t mentioned it because it isn’t finished (ha! ha!) but Jean Michel is making an upstairs kitchen because once we got the fire going in October, we decided it would be cool – or should I say warm – to have breakfast and apéritifs dinatoires in the upstairs living room.

The S-bend in the Wachau in Austria
The S-bend in the Wachau in Austria

I’ve done better with the second resolution to travel more in Europe. We loved Barcelona and our cycling trip along the Danube in the summer which included Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Switzerland, was undoubtedly my best holiday ever. We also unexpectedly went to Sofia and Plovdiv (which reminds me I still have a post to write …).

My third resolution was to go back to fitter occupations and lose the 3 or 4 kilos I’d gained. No problem about that one – our 1,100 kilometers of cycling along the Danube plus all the other shorter cycling holidays have certainly made me fitter. Discovering the 5:2 fast diet is now a way of life. I lost the extra kilos and am now able to enjoy foods I thought I had banished forever.

An Aussie in France on Berges de Seine which opened in summer 2013
An Aussie in France on Berges de Seine which opened in summer 2013

I’m not sure about my fourth resolution of getting out and about in Paris more. I certainly did during the summer months particularly on the banks of the Seine, but as the days get shorter, so does my resolve. I do have the excuse of being in Blois a lot during the winter!

The last resolution was to make the most of my iPhone camera particularly at night. I did learn to do fashion shoots when Black Cat was setting up her sewing blog and I created a second photo blog, Blois Daily Photo, in July but I haven’t made any progress with night photography so I can put that back on the list!

Lilac time at Closerie Falaiseau
Lilac time at Closerie Falaiseau

My first resolution for 2014 is to have a maximum number of holiday bookings for Closerie Falaiseau between 1st April and 30th September. We rented for a total of 19 weeks in 2013 so are not far off our goal. All our guests were lovely and gave us wonderful reviews. One extremely nice American couple came back again and have already booked for 2014.

The second resolution is a bit tougher. I’d like to diversify into some sort of tourist-related activity in Blois but it still needs a lot of defining and requires more energy than I seem to have at the moment. Maybe along the lines of the THATlou treasure hunt, walking tours, visits to châteaux, mushroom picking, organisation of short stays in the Loire Valley …

Château de Chenonceau from the cycle path
Château de Chenonceau from the cycle path

Another long cycling holiday is my third resolution so we’ve started looking at the map. Perhaps in the northern part of Germany along the Rhine. In the meantime, we have organised a home exchange in Venice at the end of April!

My fourth resolution is to discover the secret of getting enough sleep. Maybe if I set it as a goal, I might actually be able to do something about it! Who knows?

My favourite view of Blois with the traditional gabarre boats in the foreground
My favourite view of Blois with the traditional gabarre boats in the foreground

And the 5th is improving my night photography skills.

How about you? What are your new year’s resolutions for 2014?

As one of my friends so cleverly put it: may 2014 bring what 2013 forgot!

Weekly Blogger Round-Up – Getting Tough in French – Top 7 moments in France – A French library and literature

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This week’s Blogger Round-Up starts with two expats talking about their experience in France. Wendy from Random Ramblings describes a major breakthrough in French while Bread is Pain shares her top 7 moments in France as part of the Expat Blog Award which I didn’t have time to enter this year. After you read her post, don’t forget to write a comment and help her win an award. Finally, Claire from Word by Word, source of many of the books I read, takes us around the media library in Aix-en-Provence and talks about the contemporary French literary scene. Enjoy!

Getting tough

by Wendy, an Australian Photographer and Psychologist living in Paris, enjoying life and working hard. Random Ramblings is where she shares a story or two.

getting_toughWalking in the forest recently, I came across an elderly lady walking her dog. It was a little dog, playful and excitable a puppy perhaps. As the puppy ran towards me I bent down to pat it, to only hear the lady calling out ‘ne touchez pas’ french for don’t touch.

As I approached the lady she began to tell me the dog was young and needs to learn to not jump. I responded that I had thought she was telling me not to touch the dog. Read more

Top 7 “Moments in France”

by Bread is Pain, a 30-something American living in the Rhone-Alps, getting her master’s degree, learning French and slowly eating and drinking herself through the country

Being an expat has moments that are difficult, funny, exciting, even terrifying and no two countries are alike.  Here are a few of the moments that France has to offer:

# 7: The Language Moment: The time you accidentally offend people.

Speaking in a different language is always complicated, no matter how long you have studied it.  Every language has subtle nuances and phrases that are cultural not just linguistic.  You may be able to understand every single grammatical rule of a particular language but still be lost when you are in a country that actually speaks it…and French is no exception.  Read more

They’re Reading Thousands of Great Books Here, Cité du Livre – A Local French Cultural Centre and Library

by Claire from Word by Word, Citizen of Planet Earth, Anglosaxon by birth, living and working in France, who loves words, language, sentences, metaphors, stories long and short, poetry, reading and writing

library-aix-2Yesterday via a link on twitter, I read a provocative article in BBC News Magazine by Hugh Schofield entitled Why don’t French books sell abroad? It was an interesting, if superficial article, that made a few observations without going into any depth to understand the contemporary literary scene in France. It asked questions, reminded us of some old provocative stereotypes and did little to enlighten us on the subject of what excites French readers and why the English-speaking world aren’t more aware of their contemporary literary gems. Read more

What does adventure mean to me?

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Adventure means going out of your  comfort zone. That’s what my son would say anyway.

For me, that means experiencing a new culture, a new language, a new place.

photo_collage

So my first adventure was going to Noumea for six weeks to work in a snack bar when I was 19.

My next adventure was leaving Australia behind me forever when I was 22. I cleared my room of all my belongings, packed my trunk and left with not a glance behind me. No internet and mobile phones in those days.

I landed in the south of France with not an English speaker in sight. It was exhilarating! I woke up every day to a new adventure. I bought a moped and learnt to ski.

I hitchhiked all over France, then took off to Morocco, Greece, Spain and Italy. I trekked in the mountains and was saved by helicopter.

Then I went to live in the centre of Paris in an historical building just near the Louvre with a view to die for. What’s that if it’s not an adventure ?

Travelling the world has always been an adventure but it took on a new dimension last summer when we cycled 1100 kilometers along the Danube, through Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Hungary – a totally new experience that I’m eager to repeat.

Now we’re about to retire and are embarking on perhaps the greatest adventure of all. Living in a 400-year old house amongst the famous châteaux of the Loire Valley. Wish us luck!

This post is my entry in an adventure photo competition being run by Southern Cross Travel Insurance. I was invited to participate by Carolyn from Holidays to Europe.  I’d love to hear what adventure means to Phoebe from Lou Messugo and Susan from Days on the Claise as well.

Moving from Paris to the Loire

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At 20, I lived in Townsville on the north-east coast of Australia and dreamed of living in France. When I arrived here for good at 22, I spent a week in Paris then went to an assistant teaching post in a town called Pau in the south-west of France which has a population of 100,000, very similiar to that of Townsville,  because I wanted to be close to Spain to improve my Spanish.

View of the Pyrenees from the Boulevard des Pyrénées in Pau
View of the Pyrenees from the Boulevard des Pyrénées in Pau

The next year I was posted to Nantes, on the tip of Brittany and the Loire Valley, which had a population of 400,000. My next move, a year later, was to Fontenay sous Bois in the eastern suburbs of Paris. I stayed there for nearly twenty years, after which I moved into the very centre of Paris 8 years ago, just near the Louvre.

A view from our balcony in the centre of Paris
A view from our balcony in the centre of Paris

This time next year, I’ll be living full time in Blois because Jean Michel is retiring on 10th October and we will have to vacate our apartment in the Palais Royal because it is part of his job. There is no way we can afford to buy or rent similar accommodation. While I was still teaching part-time at university (ESIT), we thought we’d find something in the Yvelines to the west of Paris so I could commute once a week.

Typical view of the Loire River with its many sandbanks
Typical view of the Loire River with its many sandbanks

Then I decided to stop teaching after fifteen years and go back to freelance translation full time which changed our options entirely. After friends bought a house in Amboise we started looking at possibilities in the Loire Valley and fell in love with Closerie Falaiseau in Blois, a full three years before retirement – it was the very first house we visited.

Closerie Falaiseau in June 2012
Closerie Falaiseau in June 2012

The house itself is much bigger than we intended to buy and has several other buildings – two barns, an old pigsty, a workshop, a wood shelter and a smaller house which we originally thought we’d turn into a gîte for holiday rental. For various reasons, one of the barns will now become the gîte.

The pigsty which now houses the rubbish bins
The pigsty which now houses the rubbish bins

In the meantime, we have turned the bottom part into a gîte for two people so that the house won’t be left empty for long periods and we can finance conversion of the barn which is currently only four walls and a roof. The gîte has been doing well and we’ve had excellent reviews. We’ve also met some wonderful people.

View from the house
View from the house

So for the past two years, we’ve been psychologically making the move from the centre of Paris to a small provincial town of 50,000 people.

Will we be bored ? That is the question. Judging from our time in Blois so far, I don’t think so although the longest we have stayed at a time is two weeks even if I came here by myself very often last winter while our balcony in Paris was being refurbished. This winter, with no one staying in the gîte, we’ll be coming down one or two weeks a month and for the whole of March before the next rental season begins.

Front steps in June when the roses are in full bloom
Front steps in June when the roses are in full bloom

As I get older, my interests have changed considerably. I used to go to every exhibition that was on. We often went to the theatre and cinema and out to dinner with friends. Now we focus a lot more on holidays and rarely go to exhibitions. Many of our friends are retiring and moving away from Paris as well.

Hollyhocks in front of the little house
Hollyhocks in front of the little house

We’ve already made new friends in Blois and in other parts of the Loire through the Loire Connexion. We spend a lot of time cycling when the weather permits, gardening, mushroom picking, taking photos and visiting châteaux and castles – not to mention renovating of course. This year, we’re able to make the most of our Renaissance fireplace that we spent a long time refurbishing last winter.

And we’ll never be far from Paris – it’s only a couple of hours by car and 1 ½ hours by train.