Now that I am a proud hydrangea owner, I want to know how to dry them properly. Last year on the market, I bought a big blue hydrangea, hung it upside down in a cool dry place. It dried beautifully and I was able to use it for about six months as a decoration in the bathroom of Closerie Falaiseau before it fell apart.
My pink hydrangeas next to the former pigsty (now the rubbish bin)
To replace it, I cut off one of my own pink hydrangeas and did the same thing. Only it shrivelled up and went brown. I thought maybe you needed special hydrangeas so I bought one at the market again. I explained I was going to dry it and that I hadn’t been successful with my own hydrangea.
Blue hydrangea with mostly open flowers and a couple of closed ones
The lady told me the secret. Those blue petal-like things are not actually petals, but bracts (pointsettias have them too). The flowers are the tiny things in the middle. You can see that most of them are open but that a couple are still in the form of a closed ball. You have to keep the hydrangea in water, changing it twice a week, until all the flowers are open.
My pink hydrangeas at the back of the bread oven
That’s when you take it out of the water, strip the leaves off and hang it upside down so that it will be evenly shaped. I can’t wait to try out the same technique on my pink hydrangeas. Any other hydrangea lovers out there?
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I finally retired at the end of 2024 after semi-retirement 5 years earlier. I worked full-time for 40 years in France as a freelance technical and legal translator, in the days before AI. I also lectured in the Masters programme at ESIT, which for many years the only state-run translation and interpretation school. I was there for 15 years, including 6 years in a part-time position.
Our house in Blois
After I retired, I continued to work part-time as an auto-entrepreneur, mainly as a sworn translator. I loved my profession and the transition to part-time sworn translator kept me in contact with a lot of interesting people as my main work was translating documents such as birth certificates, naturalisation applications, driver’s licence exchanges and real estate transactions. Last year, I did two interpretations for property sales at the notaire’s. I am happy to be finally retired but I would still be happy to do the odd interpretation.
When I get up in the morning, I can take my time. It’s a wonderful feeling! No more deadlines to meet! And it’s surprising how much time it takes to do nothing in particular. Do I get bored, you may ask? NO!! I have plenty to occupy me. First, I have a long list of things I’ve been meaning to do for a long time such as updating this blog :). I am currently making digital photo albums to have them turned into a printed book.
Enjoying a house-made cake at Château de Chaumont on a Sunday morning
One of our great pleasures is our daily wordle – 2 wordles and one quordle in French and the New York Times wordle for me, which I play with friends from my old school days in Townsville where I was born and brought up.
Apart from our own garden, I look after a shared garden that is attached to Châtel Rose, my holiday rental studio in Blois. It’s a very different sort garden – completely flat – unlike our own garden which is clay and mainly on sloping ground. I practically started the shared garden from scratch, with flowering perennials that need very little water as we don’t have a water supply. So far, it’s doing very well. It keeps me busy as I am virtually the only gardener! Our garden at home is practically a full-time job but I am working towards less maintenance as it becomes more established. We have a watering system from a well at the back of the house.
Jean Michel is an extraordinary renovator. We have added a paved terrace and wrought-iron pergola behind our house which will soon be covered in climbing roses. My talented husband has also made a laundry, added custom-built staircases to the garage and wood shelter and redone the entire rear façade of the house. His current project is renovating the barn and adding a greenhouse to the back of the non-functional little house on one side of our property. I help when I can but concentrate more on the garden.
Lunch on the terrace in the summer
We do a lot of travelling, especially to Boston where my darling little grandson, Eric (five in August) and beautiful little granddaughter Sophie (2 in March) live with my son and his American wife. My daughter and her Dutch husband live in New York with Lucas who turned one in October. We have been doing a lot of home exchanges for which we are very thankful as it really the only viable way we can visit for three or four weeks at a time.
After living in the Palais Royal in the middle of Paris for ten years, we moved to a beautiful house in Blois in the Loire Valley when Jean Michel retired 11 years ago. The house, built in 1584, was in excellent condition on the whole. We (and this means mostly Jean Michel) have mainly renovated the monumental fireplace in the upstairs living room, completely redone the downstairs kitchen, adding a picture window, fitted out a small upstairs kitchen and added skylights.
Our back garden
To keep fit and healthy, we both practice 5:2 intermittent fasting twice a week and I walk briskly for an hour every day. I try to get the household chores, including making my own yoghurts and bread, out of the way by 11 am. Fortunately I have a cleaner.
When the weather gets warmer, we cycle on our e-bikes as much as we can, sometimes driving to further locations with the bikes on a rack at the back of the car. We have now visited all the main châteaux in the region and most of the smaller ones. There are many bikes routes in the area but with our e-bikes, we are not limited. We have favourite places such as the rose village of Chédigny that we visit a couple of times a year.
The rose garden in the village of Chédigny
We have annual passes to Château de Chaumont and go there for coffee, cakes and a walk every Sunday morning we are in Blois. From April to the end of October, there is an annual garden festival in the château grounds which gives us endless variety from one season to the next. The château has frequent photography and art exhibitions.
Every Saturday morning we go to the local produce market in Blois which gives us the opportunity to catch up with locals we have come to know over the years. We have coffee at Jeff’s outdoor stand in warmer weather and at Le Baroque on the corner of Place Louis XII the rest of the time. From October to April we buy oysters to take home for lunch.
The Saturday morning market on Place Louis XII in Blois
As you can see, we are creatures of habit! We usually find a warmer destination in February or early March to spend a week exploring other European countries. In recent years, we’ve been to Rome, Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Andalucia and Crete. We track the weather and book our airline tickets and accommodation at the last minute.
Towards the end of June, we usually set off on a 3 or 4-week cycling holiday, choosing the destination and departure date according to the weather, once again. We do not like cycling in the rain although an occasional rainy day can give us some R&R! We have now covered most of Europe. Our method is to rent an appartment for 3 or 4 nights and cycle in different directions.
Cycling around Lake Bled in Slovenia
Last year, for example, the ultimate destination was Lake Bled in Slovenia. We went via Cerdon in the Jura mountains in France, Lake Iseo in Italy, Porec on the Istrian peninsula, then Lake Bled itself. We returned via Radovlijica in eastern Slovenia, Ebbs in Austria and Saint-Hippolyte in Alsace. We usually book the next apartment on the second day of our stay in each place. That way, we can make the best choice weather-wise!
The rest of the summer is spent making the most of our garden, interspersed with cycling excursions.
As there is a severe lack of medical practitioners in Blois, we go to Amboise or Tours if we need to see a specialist. We usually make a day of it to catch up with some shopping and take in a restaurant.
The shared garden of my holiday rental in Blois
One of our great pleasures is making the most of the local gastronomy. We choose a Michelin-starred restaurant in the area four times a year to celebrate our birthdays and anniversaries. Fortunately, they are well spaced out – April, June, October and December! At the other end of the scale, we go to “workers’ restaurants” when we are cycling. There are plenty of other occasions to enjoy all the other great restaurants in between!
I realise that overall, we are not very social beings but we do see friends from time to time and have had quite a few visits from our children and grandchildren in the last couple of years. I have a lot of virtual contact with friends as well, some from my childhood.
All I can say is that we are never bored and that our days are always full!
I see that I have not published a New Year post since 2021! Life has kept getting in the way.
This, my first full year of retirement was very much focused on grandparenting with a 5-week visit in February/March from my baby Lucas and his mum, 3 weeks in Boston in April to visit my son, his Amercan wife and two children Eric (now 4) and Sophie (nearly 2). I was joined by Lucas and his parents for a week. Lucas and his mum came back to Blois at the end of July and stayed for 6 wonderful weeks! We then went back to Boston in October and looked after Eric in Cape Cod during his school holidays. We stayed a total of three weeks, during which time Lucas and his parents joined us for a week.
We still did some real travelling, starting with a week in Crete in February, where we took up from where we left off in February 2020, when we had to cut short our visit due to Covid. It was great to have a change of scenery and some sun but apart from the visit to Knossos, it seems that we had already seen the best of Crete the first time.
The end of June saw us heading off on our annual cycling holiday, with Lake Bled in Slovenia as the ultimate destination. We started in the Jura, followed by Lake Iseo in Italy and on to the Slovenian side of the peninsula of Istria (we had already been to Porec and Pula in Croatia on a previous trip). The weather was very very hot and we continued to have high temperatures throughout our stay. We restricted our cycling hours to the morning whenever possible. Fortunately we had air-conditioning in all the apartments we rented. We no longer stay in hotels, preferring this option with a 3 to 4 night stay each time. As we don’t like riding in the rain, we usually book the next accommodation on the second day of each stay. This may limit our choice, but we always suitable accommodation.
We had fond memories of Slovenia from our past trip fifteen years ago but it has now become a favourite tourist destination for Europeans and we were disappointed with the over-exploitation of the Lake Bled region. The lake itself, however, was picture-perfect and we had an apartment at the top end of the lake with a mountain and garden view. After visiting the Tomin Gorges, where we accidentally found ourselves in the middle of a marathon, we headed for Radece in the south east, on the Sava River, touted as having the country’s best cycling paths. Apart from the fact that we made the acquaintance of cvicek, a unique Slovenian red wine, which has a maximum alcohol content of 10 degrees and is always served chilled – perfect for the hot summer – and the best folk museum I have ever been to in Brezice, there was not much to see and the bike paths were way below German or Austrian standards, let alone Dutch!
We left Slovenia and moved onto the Tyrol area of Austria. These were our best cycling days, drinking in the beautiful mountain vistas, painted houses and baroque churches. Even the many climbs did not diminish our appreciation of the region. Our last stop was near Selestat in Alsace, where we cycled through vineyards and visited the amazing castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg.
After the constant heat, we were delighted to come home to our beautiful garden!
We have continued to be active members of Home Exchange, mainly so that we can visit the family in the US. We stayed for the sixth time with Matt and Jery in Belmont, near Boston. My son now has a new home with a guest room so we will not be staying with them anyone. We will however be visiting them as they have become good friends. We also took Eric to a wonderful home exchange on Cape Cod for four days. We will be returning there in April.
Healthwise, we spent most of January at the physotherapist’s – JM for a back problem and me for a shoulder problem, but I did manage to avoid surgery thanks to shock waves and physiotherapy. Unfortunately, 2 days before we left Boston in October, I tripped over a root and landed with my shoulder on another root, dislocating it very painfully. It was put back in place in the E&R– a pain far greater than childbirth: – and only now, more than two months later, am I pain-free. At least it didn’t make the existing problem any worse and I do not need surgery as the Boston specialist predicted. As a result, I am making sure that I walk briskly for at least one hour a day and doing senior stabilizing exercises so that this will not happen again!! I do not recommend getting older …
Our plans for the coming year are a week in Athens in February, a month in New York and Boston in April/May, a cycling holiday somewhere in Europe in the summer (Ireland or Portugal perhaps), and another visit to the US in October. The summer choice is very restricted theses days as we have now cycled extensively in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Romania. I don’t know how much longer we will be able to have this type of holiday, but we will keep going as long as our energy and health permit. We no longer cycle all day, every day, and our e-bikes definitely help but we still find this is the best way to get to know a country and its people outside the main tourist areas.
I would like to wish everyone a healthy, happy and fulfilling 2026.
“The best laid plans of mice and men …” John Burns never said a truer word!
We started the year with lots of travel plans and the first was a trip to Crete in March to break the winter blues. Covid 19 at that time was still a minor issue, although we did wear masks in the airport. After three most enjoyable days at a home exchange in Chania, we moved to Agios Nikolaos, by which time bars, restaurants and cultural venues had closed. Even though we were in an apartment, it wasn’t much fun. After visiting a 3500-year-old olive tree, there wasn’t much left to do and lockdown was about to start in France.
Crete
We took the next flight out of Heraklion, getting up at 4 am to do so! We wore masks for the whole trip and arrived back in Blois just two hours after lockdown, did some food shopping and holed up for the next 55 days! Lockdown eased on 11th May and we were no longer restricted to essential shopping and physical activity for one hour within a 1 km radius of our home. We also no longer needed to fill out a form when we did go out. After two weeks, on the 15th June, all restrictions were lifted and we started making holiday plans!
In the meantime, my daughter and her Dutch fiancé, who live in New York, had had to cancel their wedding plans in northern Italy in May while my son and his American girlfriend decided to get married on a ski slope in Vermont in the presence of only two other people! We watched the wedding on Skype but unfortunately there was no sound. We then had a virtual aperitif drinking the same champagne that my son bought on his last trip to France in November when we met his fiancé. We are delighted to welcome her into the family. Since then, the newlyweds have bought a house in Boston while my daughter and her fiancé have tentatively set September 2021 as a wedding date.
Cycling in the Jura
Holiday-wise, Germany seemed the safest as their Covid figures were very low (compared with France, Italy and Spain!) and we knew that we could count on outdoor eating venues and strict observance of hygiene protocols. We chose to avoid hotels and B&Bs and only stay in holiday flats with balconies or gardens, having breakfast and dinner at home. Our top priority was cycling and enjoying Germany’s many beautiful towns and villages. On June 26th, we started our 3-week journey in the Jura mountains in the east of France, discovering an area we didn’t know and which has an impressive number of bike paths.
Lake Constance
Next stop was Austria, from which we were able to visit Gallen with its famous baroque library over the border in Switzerland and cycle along Lake Constance. We followed the good weather as we always do and went back to the beautiful Bavarian mediaeval town of Bamberg, then Nuremberg, before spending four absolutely perfect days on the Forggensee. We had been there before, in our pre-e-bike days. This time we were able to appreciate the absolutely stunning scenery without straining our knees.
The Forggensee
We started heading back to France via the Neckar with some wonderful rides along the Kocher-Jagst Radweg near Heilbronn. Our last stop was the Black Forest. The scenery is beautiful and we had a breath-taking view from our balcony, but the cycling is a disaster! We arrived home on 17th July after driving 3380 K and cycling 773 K!
After we got back, we had a visit from my son who needed a new working US visa for his new job. The story is a bit complicated, but the upshot was that he left Boston wearing a mask (after getting a negative Covid test) and did not take it off until he got in his hire car at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. He then came straight to Blois, only doing a same-day return trip to Paris to go to his Embassy appointment. He needed another test in Blois before returning to Boston. It was lovely to see him for a few days.
Château de Chaumont
Otherwise, we have kept ourselves occupied and feel grateful every day for having a large house and garden that we love. While we could, we cycled as much as possible exploring many new areas and making the most of our annual pass to Château de Chaumont.
Our back garden view when dining outdoors
I have continued to work part-time, mainly as a sworn translator (I only just broke even on my holiday rental studio in Blois, which was supposed to supplement my terrible retirement pension), and my husband Jean Michel has completed various projects including two cold frames, two raised vegetable beds and two staircases for the garage and wood shed. There is still another one to go in the barn. We gardened extensively during the warmer months, growing a lot of plants from seed and increasing our collection of drought-resistant perennials. It made up for being so restricted in our movements. I also blogged every day on www.loiredailyphoto.com, especially during the different lockdown periods. It has helped me to stay connected with the outside world.
We did manage another 5-day cycling holiday in September in the Nièvre, based in La Charité-sur-Loire (near Sancerre). The Covid figures were low at the time and we could still count on outdoor eating at lunchtime. It was a welcome break. When we got home, we bought a garden heater so we could continue to enjoy eating outside throughout October. We went back into lockdown on 30th October for a month, followed by a 2-week easing period when non-essential shops opened again under extreme pressure from the public in the warm-up to Christmas.
Cycling along the Nièvre
What I have missed and continue to miss most are my children and friends. I haven’t seen my daughter since November 2019 when we shopped for her wedding dress. I occasionally go walking with a friend and we briefly met up with other friends in December in a park. During Christmas and New Year, which we naturally spent alone, eating home-made foie gras and drinking vouvray wine, we spent a lot of time reading our travel diaries aloud and looking at the corresponding digital photos. We FaceTimed with all the children and their partners on Christmas Day, which cheered us up no end. They are all doing well despite Covid.
If you’ve been tracking the Covid situation in France, you will know that we are not out of the woods. We have a large and somewhat reticent population to vaccinate and we are not in the immediate target group. We have another two months of cold, stay-at-home weather in front of us, then we’ll be able to go back to our outdoor occupations. By then we might be eligible for vaccination. In the meantime, we are exercising maximum precaution, only going to shop once a week at the local market and supermarket and, occasionally, the plant nursery. We buy everything else over the Internet. I continue to make our bread and yoghurts.
The Loire River near our house
Our hopes for 2021 are to see our children again, including Jean Michel’s two sons who live in France, celebrate my daughter’s wedding wherever it may be, visit my son and daughter and partners in Boston and New York and find a safe venue for our annual cycling holiday.
I would like to wish everyone a happier 2021, full of hope, inner strength and new horizons! Thank you for reading my very sporadic blog!
Having worked as a translator full-time at home since 1979, even during my children’s very long French school holidays, I am probably not suffering from the constraints of lockdown as much as other people.
These are my basic rules:
1/Get dressed immediately when you get up (this became a rule right at the beginning when I had a client turn up unexpectedly at my doorstep and I was still in my nightgear).
2/ Set up a dedicated work space, even if you do not have a lot of room. Avoid working in the bedroom if you possibly can (you’ll sleep better at night!).
3/ Make yourself work for an hour at a time WITHOUT ANY DISTRACTION and then allow 10 to 15 minutes break (I have software called WorkPace that locks my keyboard every hour and gives me exercises to do but you can override it if necessary).
4/ If you’re having trouble getting started, begin with the easiest task. Break tasks into doable segments if necessary.
5/ Take a morning tea/coffee break, a proper lunchbreak and an afternoon tea break and NEVER EVER eat at the computer. If you want a snack, run up and down the steps, skip rope or clean the bath first. You probably won’t feel like it any more. The idea is to dissociate eating from working.
6/ Do at least ½ hour of exercise inside or outside each day. During our miserable winter, I do the “Happy Walk”.
7/ If you are used to a lot of light as I am (I lived in tropical North Queensland for 22 years), use a daylight lamp for 4 hours a day. You would be surprised how effective it is.
8/ Make sure you talk to someone at least once a day if you are living alone. If you are used to having a lot of people around you at work, you should talk to at least three people a day! Texting is not a substitute. Maybe you can call someone during your lunch break. That’s what my daughter does because she hates eating by herself. Use headphones to make it easier. There are lots of home tasks you can do while talking on the phone such as cooking, hanging out the washing, ironing and gardening.
9/ Take the evening off if you can but sometimes it may be better to take time off during the day and work after dinner instead. However, you will need to leave at least an hour between working and sleeping if you want a restful night.
10/ Take off at least one full day a week – it doesn’t have to be Sunday!
Lockdown won’t last forever and we need to preserve our resources to deal with the aftermath!
Do you have any suggestions about working at home?
It’s nearly mid-January and I have only just found the time to write this new year post. Even though we have up until the end of January in France to do so, it’s still better to wish people a happy new year within the first week of the month. But lack of time is the story of my life at the present. Working full-time as a freelance technical and legal translator (I am now certified with the courts as well), looking after a large house and garden, cycling in the warmer months and hiking in the winter seem to take up most of my time.
Jean Michel with his sons on the left and my son and daughter on the right
After a delightful Christmas with all our children – my son from Boston, my daughter from New York and Jean-Michel’s sons from Brest and Limoges – in addition to my brother,wife and three sons, from Sydney, we welcomed in the New Year in front of a blazing fire, with warm thoughts for all our family and friends.
The cathedral in Angoulême
Travel-wise, 2017 was not quite as exciting as 2016 when we spent three months away altogether. However, we had a welcome short break and change of scenery in Angoulême at the beginning of February, followed by a most enjoyable week in Cyprus at the end of March with warm days and blue skies. We particularly liked the northern, Turkish part of the island with its wonderful painted monasteries.
Kykkos Monastery in northern Cyprus
We came home to spring, always the best time of the year in the Loire Valley. In April we had a fun day in a vintage car traffic jam in Blois with our friends Susan and Simon who take visitors on tours of the Loire Valley in their 1953 Citroën Traction Avant. I checked out family photos of my baptism so we could dress the part.
Jean Michel and I dressed for the part
The end of April took us to the Médoc (a four-hour drive south) for another long weekend where we combined cycling with wine-tasting and a breath of sea air. Living in the centre of France means that we are well-placed for this type of excursion.
With our power bikes on the banks of the Loire
In May, we finally made the decision to invest in electrically-powered bikes for two reasons – to save our ageing knees and to free us from restrictions related to the lie of the land. Our plan was to go to Romania in June, a country we have avoided up until then due to its very hilly countryside. We were not disappointed. Jean Michel applied his usual thoroughness to choosing the right bikes for our needs and we can now go quite effortlessly up amazingly steep hills. In fact, I’m more worried going down but our disk brakes are reassuring.
Said to be the oldest grape vine in the world – in Maribor, Slovenia
So, on 1st June, we left Blois with our bikes on the back of the car for a holiday that took us to Lake Iseo in the north of Italy, Maribor in Slovenia, where we tested our ability to scale new heights on our bikes, Eger in Hungary where we nearly got washed away in a freak flood, then Sighisoara in Romania, home of Dracula and sister city to Blois, which we used as centre to visit the fortified churches of Viscri and Biertan.
Sighisoara, home of Dracula and sister city of Blois
Suceava was the next port of call from which we cycled to many very beautiful painted churches, reminding us of our visit to Northern Cyprus. In Marmures, we stayed with a Romanian family where the head of the house spoke French and we learnt a lot about this still very backward part of the country with its beautiful wooden churches and friendly people.
The wonderful town of Cesky Krumlov in Czech Republic
We then started on the road back to France, via Levoca in Hungary, then the absolutely enchanting village of Czesky Krumlov in Czech Republic where our hotel had a garden overlooking the castle, the perfect place for a picnic in the evening twilight after a hard day’s riding. We then stayed in Slavonice before crossing into Germany and discovering Burghausen with its marvellous hillside castle. It was good to be back in a country where I could at least read the signs!
Sigmaringen on the Danube in Germany, near its source
To end our journey, we decided to return to our beloved Danube using the little village of Herbertingen as our base. Taking the train and cycling, we went as far as the source of the Danube at Donaueschingen.
View of Lake Iseo from the top of the hill
By the 28th June the weather was starting to deteriorate so we changed our initial plan to spend a couple of days in the Black Forest and went to Orta San Giulio in Italy instead where rain and shine alternated enough to let us ride around Lake Orta and up to the sanctuary of Madonna del Sasso, at an altitude of 700 metres! Once again, our power bikes proved their worth. We arrived home via Lyon on 2nd July, having been in eight coutries and covered 5,000 kilometers.
The church of Souvigny on one of our local bike rides
In July Jean Michel went walking in the Jura Mountains for 9 days with his sons while I stayed home and worked, looking forward to my retirement in June 2020 more than ever! I did discover a bike route into Blois that avoids the main road though. We then cycled as much as we could during the weekend and evenings until the weather turned too cold.
The blue mosque in Istanbul
September took us for a week to Istanbul which we loved. We rented an apartment just next to Galacta Tower which proved to be the perfect location. It had a quiet little balcony and small garden which provided well-earned rest after a day out in the busy streets of Istanbul. We often set out quite early to visit the sites to avoid the crowds.
Our wisteria in spring
On the home front, our automatic watering system is up and running but we don’t quite have a mini Giverny as initially planned, mainly due to our clayey soil, but we are learning as we go.
View from the garden of our new rental apartment in the historical part of Blois
Renovation of the studio flat I bought last year is making progress at last and should be ready for holiday accommodation this summer. We plan to offer an 18th century decorative experience with all modern conveniences. It is ideally located in the most historical part of Blois known as Puits Chatel and even has a little shared garden.
Typical house in the historical quarter of Blois near the rental apartment
I’m still keeping up with my daily photo on Loire Daily Photo even though Aussie in France is vitually at a standstill but I hope to be able to post more in the future, especially when I retire!
I do not understand where all my time goes. When I lived in Paris, I had lots of time for blogging. Now that we live in Blois, I don’t seem to have any spare time at all! I do keep up with Loire Daily Photo though.
Our marble-inlay table iinstalled n its final position in the garden with the help of our neighbour Alain and Mr Previous Owner
I have several posts in the making: Secret Blois, the arrival of our inlay marble table from India, flooding in the Loire, Montreuil Bellay …. but don’t seem to be able to finish them.
Montreuil Bellay from the bridge
We personally did not suffer from the flooding. There was a flash flood in our street but it disappeared within a couple of hours. There is still a lot of water on the low-lying areas around us and the mosquitos have arrived in droves.
Our somewhat soggy though still beautiful Pierre Ronsard roses at their zenith
Our roses were momentarily lovely but most have succombed to the rain. It seems to rain most days but tomorrow, the sun is supposed to come out and from a maximum of 20°C today it will be 30°C. We are hoping to go cycling. We should also mow the garden as everything is hopelessly overgrown.
The view from our front steps
We are currently debating about where to go on our next cycling holiday in 9 days time. We had thought of going to Saarland in Germany but it has also been flooded which means the bike paths will be a little worse for wear. At the moment, we think we’ll go to the south of France – I have never been to either Marseilles or Toulon – then to the new bike path in Italy that goes from San Remo to San Lorenzo al Mare. We hadn’t cycled in Italy until last year in Padua because 1) there are a large number of hills and 2) there are not a lot of bike paths but at least there is sun! Stay tuned.
It’s New Year’s Eve and there are just the two of us, in front of our fireplace. We’re not having anything complicated to celebrate the New Year. I once spent all day making a special dish that took forever and I didn’t think it was worth the trouble so we’re mainly having Christmas leftovers (unfortunately, we’ve finished our homemade foie gras). We’re having champagne though.
Christmas leftovers in front of the fire
I ask Jean Michel if he remembers his resolutions for 2015 and he just looks at me. “I have the bits of paper I wrote them on”, I say. So we have a look. Out of Jean Michel’s six resolutions, only one has come to fruition, but it’s the most important: “finding a better balance after retirement”. The last is also taking shape at the moment, namely improving his English. As we’re off to Australia for a month in mid-February, it’s more than important – it’s essential.
I then take a look at my five and burst out laughing. My score is even worse.
The first was to average 10,000 steps a day. I check it out on my iPhone app – 5,500. I try and console myself that for someone who spends a lot of the day in front of a computer, it isn’t too bad.
The second was to make a video for each Friday’s French post. Well, that’s a laugh! I don’t even write a Friday’s French post every week. I’m lucky if I write one a month though I wrote two recently in the same week J.
Number 3 was to sign up for Italian lessons. Yes, well, that didn’t get very far! January didn’t seem the ideal time to start because the class was already well underway and in September we went away for a month’s holiday. I might wait until I retire!
My fourth resolution was to help Jean Michel improve his English but he was far too busy all summer to be learning another language. However, now that he’s started listening to Michel Thomas again, I’m being very supportive.
Number 5 was to stop complaining and look on the positive side of life. I’m not sure about this one so I ask Jean Michel and Black Cat. They seem to think that I am positive on the whole and don’t complain most of the time so I guess that I can see it’s been mostly achieved.
Spring in our little wood – one of the bright sides of life
So now I’m wondering what resolutions I can put on the agenda this year and, do you know, I can’t think of any so I thought I might make a quick review of the year instead.
The most important thing is Jean Michel’s adjustment to retirement. I’d love to join him but I still have another 3 years and 4 months to go unless I suddenly strike it rich which doesn’t seem likely.
Bird watching from our wonderful window
After all Jean Michel’s hard work, we now have a wonderful kitchen window that looks out onto our little wood and gives us endless pleasure, especially bird watching now that we have outwitted the neighbour’s cat.
I don’t miss my life in Paris even remotely though I do miss my friends. I have been there only four times since we moved at the end of October 2014.
View from the window of thecrêperie during our most recent visit to Chambord on boxing day
We try to make the most of living (almost) in the country and among some of the most beautiful châteaux in the world. Chambord remains our favourite because you can go there any time for a walk, a bike ride, an ice-cream or a crêpe. We have taken full advantage of all the cycling possibilities offered to us.
I don’t blog a lot any more as you may realise. My readership went from 12,000 views a month in December 2014 up to 18,000 in May 2016 then down to 10,000 in December 2015. I lost a few subscribers in December but I quite understand that my reflections on bird feeding and walking in Blois are not nearly as exciting to most people as living in the Palais Royal! My “star” post is still “The Best Area to Stay in Paris”.
My other blog, Loire Daily Photo, dropped from 1200 in December 2014 to 1,100 in December 2015 after climbing to 1,600 in May. I wonder what was going on in May last year? However, despite the small audience, having a daily photo blog makes me much more aware of my surroundings and more interested in local history.
I don’t feel I have quite found my rhythm yet, but I can feel it coming.
Our New Year mistletoe
In any case, I’d like to wish all my readers a wonderful 2016 and thank you for stopping by.
I used to have a German friend and every time she came to my house in Fontenay sous Bois, she would look out the window and say “there’s a blue tit” or “there’s a nuthatch” which always made me very envious so when we came to live in Closerie Falaiseau in Blois I decided that I would learn to recognise the birds in my garden too. I checked with my friend Susan from Days on the Claise whether we should feed them because you’re not supposed to do so in Australia for survival reasons but she reassured me that we could feed them in winter without any problem as long as we did so regularly.
When it’s this cold, garden birds need all the help they can get
So we waited until we came to live here permanently last winter. We bought some bird seed and some fat balls as well as a couple of feeders to put up in our rose of Sharon tree in the front yard. We also put a feeder on the window sill outside the downstairs living room. We already had a bird bath. Soon we had lots of blue tits and great tits, mostly in the rose of Sharon tree.
The rose of Sharon tree is on the right. The nesting boxes are under the eaves above the wisteria in the middle of the photo.
This summer while the new kitchen window was being made, we ate outdoors every day and spent a lot of time watching the tits during mealtime. We were delighted when we saw that they had made a nest in the nesting boxes under the eaves above the wisteria. We soon saw some fledglings poking their little faces out of the holes. I might add that below the wisteria we were surprised to see wheat growing – obviously from the seeds the birds didn’t eat last winter!
The view from the kitchen window in autumn
When we came back from our holiday in Eastern Europe in October we started seeing birds from our new kitchen window although it was too early to feed them. One day I saw a large black and white bird with a red bit under its tail on the tree outside. I was so excited to learn that it was a great spotted woodpecker.
You can see the difference between this photo and the last one. Most of the leaves have gone.
The weather started getting colder so Jean Michel put out the fat balls and some mixed bird seed in a new hanging feeder. We also bought some sunflower seeds that we put in a feeder on the sill in front of the kitchen window. The birds soon discovered the feeder and we started to identify new ones.
We now have blue tits, great tits, marsh tits and crested tits, green woodpeckers and great-spotted woodpeckers, red robins, nuthatches, jays, common chaffinches, magpies and blackbirds. They are so quick that you can’t take photos of them but I discovered that it’s easy to film them.
Our new sunflower seeds turned out to be full of debris – little twigs and such – that the birds throw out of the feeder onto the windowsill. We’re not buying birdseed from Gamm Vert any more! We whiled away many delightful moments watching the antics of our little feathered friends.
Java, sitting at the top of our stairs, pretending she’s not there
Then disaster struck. Our neighbours have a white cat called Java that seems to spend more time at our place than theirs. We suspect that some of our paying guests gave her a little nourishment in September. She is a hunter and loves our little wood where she runs after mice and lizards.
When I saw her face peering over the kitchen windowsill one day, it didn’t occur to me that she might be after the birds. Jean Michel found her pulling apart two blue tits on the ground below the window one morning before I went outside thank goodness. I was devastated when he told me what had happened. Now, I know that’s what cats do but we get a huge amount of pleasure watching these little birds and it was terrible to discover we had inadvertently exposed them to danger.
You can see the netting over the bench under the window
Jean Michel found an excellent solution – he used some wire fencing to cover the stone bench outside the window that the cat was using to spring on the unsuspecting birds Now she has nothing to grip on. After two or three days the birds started coming back, first the blue tits and then the little crested tit who is my favourite.
But Java is no Sylvester and is a lot more cunning. Because she’s white, she can blend perfectly into the stone around the window. Without using the bench, she managed to sit on the window sill, apparently, staying perfectly still until an unsuspecting little blue tit came along and we had another death.
We were reduced to only putting out seed while we could monitor the presence of Java so we looked for another solution. Someone suggested putting a bell round her neck but Jean Michel says we’ll traumatise her (not that I really care!). He doesn’t want to put cat repellent out either because it might frighten away the birds as well and we’ll never get rid of the smell.
New wall solution
On Sunday, we went to Truffaut, the big gardening store and had a look at the options. There was nothing at all suitable but Jean Michel came up with another idea and here it is! Within a very short time the birds were flocking to the feeder and staying longer each time. We really don’t see how it’s possible for a cat to jump that high. I hope not anyway.
There was a time when we used to eat quite a lot of foie gras. In the winter, we would often rent a gîte for a long weekend somewhere in the country within a couple of hours from Paris and set off with a few slices of foie gras from the traiteur, a côte de boeuf, lamb chops, champagne, a vintage red or two, a couple of dozen of spéciale oysters and a bottle of sancerre. However, after we bought Closerie Falaiseau four years ago and renovated our Renaissance fireplace, we started coming down here instead. Now we only eat foie gras in restaurants occasionally and at Christmas. when we make our own.
Simon and Susan from Days on the Claise, Janet, Françoise and Paul
Today, for the second time, we had a “foie gras workshop” with our friends Susan and Simon from Days on the Claise and our neighbours Françoise and Paul. Susan picks up the foie gras (ordered well in advance) from a local farm. Another friend from Amboise joined us this time. Up until now her French mother-in-law has always made the foie gras and she (understandably) didn’t want to compete. But this year, her mother-in-law won’t be present so she thought she’d have a try.
The foie gras in its wooden wine box
The foie gras we make these days doesn’t require cooking. After deveining it and adding spices and vouvray, you wrap it in gauze, put it in a wooden wine box on a layer of coarse salt, cover it with salt and store it in a cool place (10 to 12°C) for 17 hours. You take it out of the salt and gauze, put it in a terrine and keep it in the fridge for at least 10 days. Perfect timing for Christmas. It’s melt-in-the-mouth! If you’d like a full explanation, just click here.
My pink hydrangeas next to the former pigsty (now the rubbish bin)
Blue hydrangea with mostly open flowers and a couple of closed ones
My pink hydrangeas at the back of the bread oven
