Category Archives: Retirement

From Bridge to Bridge

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It’s Sunday, the sun is shining brightly, the sky is blue and it’s 8°C. We can hardly believe it after the awful weather we have been having since November.

Sun in the little wood behind our house
Sun in the little wood behind our house

We begin with pruning the roses. We have ten climbing roses now and I’m still learning how to do it so Jean Michel explains as we go along.

We are still feeling the aftermath of the terrible terrorist attacks during the week, starting with Charlie Hebdo and ending with four people being killed in a kosher supermarket in Vincennes very close to where I once lived, so a change of scene is welcome.

View from François MItterand bridge with St Nicolas Church and Blois Castle on the left
View from François MItterand bridge with St Nicolas Church and Blois Castle on the left

Whenever we go across François Mitterand bridge in Blois, I am frustrated because I’d like to take photos of the view but there is nowhere to stop before or afterwards much less in the middle.

So we drive to the parking lot halfway between the François Mitterand and Gabriel bridges so that we can walk back to the bridge, cross it, then continue along the Vienne side to Pont Gabriel. We’ll then cross over to the monthly brocante where we recently found andirons for our Renaissance fireplace.

Blois from the Vienne side
Blois from the Vienne side

I take lots of photos of Blois as we cross the bridge (the sun is in the right direction) and another series as we walk along the river bank on the other side. We’ve often cycled here but it’s much easier to take photos when you’re walking than when you’re cycling!

Blois brocante held on the second Sunday of each month with Vienne in the background
Blois brocante held on the second Sunday of each month with Vienne in the background

I love the brocante. I’m always amazed and intrigued by the things on sale. You wonder who would buy most of the stuff but I guess that the vendors only really need a handful of sellable things and the rest is just to fill up the stand.

Unusual bellows at the market
Unusual bellows at the market

It’s still light when we get back home at 5 pm so we decide to treat the moss that is covering most of our grass using the dolomite we bought recently. Last year we bought a product from the garden store that burnt the moss but didn’t destroy it so this time I searched google for something more natural. We’ll see what happens.

Jean Michel then goes to the kitchen to cook dinner. We have just bought two (dead and plucked) free-range ducks through our neighbour Alain. Jean Michel cooked one of the ducks last night for dinner with our next-door neighbours (the ones that bought the house with the poultry yard) using a recipe called the Arabian nights (1001 nuits) with various spices, nuts and dried fruit. It was very good.

Canard à l'orange appropriately served on our Egyptian tablecloth
Canard à l’orange appropriately served on our Egyptian tablecloth

Up until Jean Michel’s retirement, I was the main cook with Jean Michel as my offsider. He also has a couple of dishes of his own (veal stew and rabbit) that he cooks occasionally in large quantities and then freezes. When we moved, I took over the everyday cooking with his occasional help when he’s not involved in renovation.

I was not initially thrilled at the idea of doing all the cooking on my own because it’s not something I’m passionate about but I saw that I really had no choice in the matter and this retirement game’s too tricky to rock the boat too much … However, Jean Michel has spontaneously increased the number of times he cooks by himself and we now have a good stock of veal, rabbit and chicken dishes in the freezer that I can dip into whenever I want.

The fireplace with the andirons we bought at the brocante
The fireplace with the andirons we bought at the brocante

Tonight he’s making the other duck into canard à l’orange which turns out to be very complicated and finicky so we don’t end up eating until 9 pm. But that’s OK. I have lit the fire and am enjoying not having to make the dinner! The breast is a little firm because it’s been cooked a bit too long but the drumstick is excellent and the orange sauce is delicious. I contributed the baked potatoes.

The rest of the duck will go into freezer bags for shepherd’s pie (hachis parmentier). I’m happy he’s found a creative activity that’s also practical and he doesn’t seem to mind that it’s so time-consuming. Vive la retraite!

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.

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