Le Grande Picnic at Doué la Fontaine – NAPPES ET PANIERS!

This is Doué’s own festival. Primarily for the residents although, of course, there’s nothing to stop anyone else from joining in.

Everyone enjoyed the fête – no matter what their age

Thursday evening 3 July saw our local town of Doué la Fontaine host their Fete l’Eté organised by the Ville de Doué la Fontaine! This event is held every year and we love it.  Primarily created for the residents, there is no advertising outside the town and everyone knows each other thus creating a huge family atmosphere.  When we arrived we were shouted over to join Christian and Didier two of Brian’s cronies from their Sunday Morning “Route de Vin” (Café de Ville, – Café d’Anjou –  Café du Marché etc.)!

In the centre ville, in front of le Bar le France, (and it is “le” France not “la” as you might think),  900 people arrived with bags and baskets of picnic goodies. The boulangerie sold out of bread, quiche and patisserie. Everyone scattered around the numerous long rows of tables decorated with pretty red and white checked tablecloths.

Out everything came, plates, serviettes, glasses, wine, bottles of Ricard and various apero drinks, nuts and nibbles, at least one family bought a ragout in a thermos flask. and they chinked glasses before devouring their plates of delicious picnics!  It was great for the children (the rues had been blocked off so they could play safely so no worries for the parents).

Everybody having a great time as the evening wore on!

To add to the children’s delight there was a special entertainer to keep them amused by cleverly twisting magical balloons into animals for the girls and swords for the little boys to fight and torment the little girls with!

Finally was the Musical Soirée by 10 musicians all with various trumpets, cornets, symbols, drums and tubas!!!  Most of the time they spent standing on chairs and tables giving the occasional Basque Corridor fanfare on the trumpet which was always met with raucous cheers and “Oles”!

It was a brilliant fun evening and much felicitations to the musicians from nearby Faye de l’Anjou who entertained all night long with les chansons francaise and contributed greatly to the success of the evening!

 

à bientôt

Sheila

Gites in the Loire Valley, Gites du val de loire

April in the Loire Valley

Spring in the Loire is one of our favourite seasons.  The mass of tourists have not yet arrived yet the bulk of the chateaux and other attractions are open, almost all of them from Easter onwards.  But for us it’s the colours and the freshness of the countryside which we find very appealing.  The vines are bursting into leaf in the mass of vineyards around Le Puy Notre Dame.  The area is dotted with the vibrant yellow of rape and spring flowering plants are bursting out with the exuberance which comes after the short days of winter.  The courtyard and garden here at Le Clos des Guyons becomes a riot of colour, the asparagus starts to go into overdrive producing masses of edible shoots every day, the vegetable garden becomes alive with lettuce and radish, potatoes, peas, beetroot, cauliflower, chard and sprouts are all growing apace. The real bonus is that the whole of our outside space has a glorious aroma of Wisteria, Lily of the Valley and Lilac.  Here are a few photos:  Just click on any to start the gallery.

Golden rape fields around Le Puy Notre Dame or – as Brian would have it, Custard fields. He also says that the heady, heavy scent is like hot plastic. This is what happens when you keep sticking your nose into wine glasses!

Actindia Komitata – apparently! It’s started to cover the wall of the old stable. It’s an unusual plant as the colour isn’t flowers but the leaves which go white and a soft pink. At it’s best in Spring.

Oxalis Triangulartis – I’m sure Brian makes these names up! Nevertheless it’s a pretty plant with small delicate creamy white flowers against the red foliage.

Golden sage and Tri-coloured sage in our herb garden

Our bed of Lily of the Valley

Part of the border near the fish-pond.

Wisteria and Rambling Rose over an outbuilding

Closeup of the aforementioned Rambling Rose. I’ve no idea what variety it is.

Part of our veg. garden

Vines just starting into speedy growth

Robert, our neighbour, working his Strawberries

And not long to go now.

You may have noticed that this is not a picture of a flower! It’s a load of “souche” trunks of vines ripped from the vineyards. Dropped of by a winemaking friend, we use them for BBQ’s and for the woodburner in Winter.

Happy Spring Gardening

Sheila

Gites in the Loire Valley

Wild flowers in the Loire

One of the things we love about late May and early June is the cornucopia of wild flowers which appear alongside the ancient stone walls and in fields and spare ground framed by vineyards and fields of hay.  This year, because of the worst spring weather in living memory, many of the late flowering plants have actually come into their resplendant best at the same time as later flowering species making a superb display.

I suppose that the inevitable consequence of living in the same place for many years is the fact that you become rather blasé and forget why you decided to live here in the first place. Driving around the village of Le Puy Notre Dame and it’s hamlets, has certainly reminded me how pretty the area can be.  Just getting off the main roads and driving, walking or cycling, (we even provide the bikes) down little used lanes winding between the vineyards is an activity which I would recommend to all our guests.

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à bientôt

Brian

Gîtes in the Loire

A LOT OF ASPARAGUS!

Pasta with Asparagus, Mushrooms and Lardons

This is it!  The time we have been waiting for in our garden with the arrival of fabulous green shoots of asparagus to delight our tastes and we have a garden full of it!  Weeks late this year because of the worst Spring in living memory, it is now making up for lost time and every morning brings a profusion of new, succulent shoots.

Nothing delights us more than to eat this vegetable and so I thought I would share this photograph with you and a recipe I recently cooked which is so simple.

Just heat some olive oil in a large pan and cook a few lardons,( cubes of bacon), and fresh mushrooms, which, given that we live in the largest mushroom growing area in France, are easy to find, until just turning brown. At the same time bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook some multi coloured pasta for a few minutes.  After the bacon and mushroom are cooked, drain the cooked pasta and then add to the large pan of cooked bacon and mushrooms and mix together with some cream. Meantime you can cook your spears of asparagus for a few minutes either in a pan of boiling water or, alternatively, you can microwave them for a few minutes to keep their flavour.  Afterwards, place the cooked asparagus on the top of your pan of pasta, bacon and mushrooms and serve with some shavings of parmesan on the top.  Very easy and scrumptious!  It’s nice as a main course or a simple starter and one of my favourites!

And for a wine – funnily enough, I would recommend one which is generally of our least favourite, the rosé, Cabernet d’Anjou, which, however, if it has one use in the whole universe it is to go with aparagus, which is notoriously difficult to partner with wine.

Bon appetit!

Sheila

Vacation lets in the Loire Valley

FOUR COWBOYS OF LE PUY NOTRE DAME AND A GAME OF LA BOULE DE FORT

When we arrived in Le Puy Notre Dame, which seems many years ago now, I often passed “le Société des Arts”, normally when I was en-route to the bar.  Now, I am not adverse to a bit of art and culture but neither did I want to hang around like a spare part while people painted, sculpted and discussed how much formaldehyde it took to pickle a shark or how much detritus you could arrange, ( artistically of course), on an unmade bed.  So I gave it a wide berth.  However I was eventually informed that the  “Art” bit was actually short for Artisan, in other words it was a Working Mens Club.  After this refreshing bit of information I called in one day when Chez Sonia was closed and found, not budding Damien Hirsts or Jackson Pollocks but everyone who I normally passed the time with in the bar.  Wine and beer is very cheap, annual membership is a couple of Euros and inside was a court for playing “Les Boules de Fort”.  Boule de Fort is a game rather like boules itself, which anyone who knows anything about France will know about.  But it is played on an indoor court which is “U” shaped in profile so that the ball doesn’t go in a straight line but progresses down the court in a series of sinuous curves, first rolling up one side and then the other until it finishes close to the small target boule, “le Maitre”.  It is decidedly addictive.

The indoor boules court at le Societé des Arts in Le Puy Notre Dame. You can clearly see the curvature of the court.

Anyway le Société or le Soc – for short, is now a regular part of life and many a happy hour has been spent there.

The scene now shifts to our friend Marcel who, after having taken early retirement, passes the bulk of his time making movies. He rang one day and asked if he could ask me a question.  “Yes”, said I, “of course”.  “Have you got a leather coat?”  “Yes”, I replied cautiously, I have known Marcel too long not to know when he’s building up to something.  “How about a cowboy hat”? “Funnily enough, no”, I replied.  ” That’s ok, I’ve got one” was the next cryptic comment.   “Good, I’m very happy for you”. I retorted, determined not to crack first and ask what the hell he was banging on about.  “What about boots, cowboy boots?  “No, sorry”, I admitted.  “Mmmm…never mind, can’t be helped”, he murmured. “Yes, c’est la vie”, I added.  Slight pause, and then he came clean.  He was doing a film on Le Puy Notre Dame and wanted a jokey ending so he’d dreamed up this idea of a high-noon shootout.  Four dangerous looking cowboys meet in the village and then walk, with murderous intent down to the Societé des Arts where they enter into a winner take all game of boule de fort. ” So can you meet me in the Société at 1400hrs?”. asked Marcel.  “Certainly” I replied, “Who are the others?”  He told me the names of two people I didn’t know and Robert, who lives opposite.  “And by the way” said Marcel, “You need to be chewing gum”.  I asked if cowboys always chew gum.  Apparently, they do.

At five minutes to two I left the house and walked to the appointed rendezvous with Robert who, amazingly, had dug up a pair of cowboy boots from somewhere.  No, I didn’t ask.  The day was weird enough already. We met Marcel who shoved a battered, straw sun-hat on my head and gave me a stick of chewing gum.  We then stalked into the boules court, carefully arranged in height, smallest first.  We then chose our boules and stood still for a moment looking terrifyingly menacing, (just for the camera, you understand).  Then onto the game itself and guess who won?  Why me of course.  Although I’ve absolutely no idea how, given the fact that I don’t know the rules and  that my first three boules thudded into the end-boards with enough force to shake the three steeples of the nearby church.

Me, making my world famous winning shot and trying to hit,… I mean miss Marcel!, at the same time.

Then onto the section of the film which will appear first which is when we are are leaning on appropriate stone walls around the church looking mean, chewing gum, (I was pretending as I’d swallowed mine in giving a shout of joy when I smashed Robert’s boule away from the Maitre), and waiting for high noon.  We then walked four abreast down the rue to the Société looking very serious and with a “this town ain’t big enough for all of us” mindset, all it needed was some tumbleweed and a passing stagecoach. A passing tractor pulling a trailer full of some anonymous animal manure didn’t really have the same effect.   Marcel had even managed to get a mutual friend, Bernard, to run around with “No Entry” signs so that no passing traffic disturbed his filming.  Of course it was actually counter productive as it caused more delay as everyone stopped their cars/tractors/vans, got out and asked what was going on.

So then to the bar to discuss the days artistic achievement although I was quite disappointed that I wasn’t plied with free drinks being the undisputed winner.  I’ll post a link to the film when Marcel has finished the editing.

Just one postscript: Marcel rang later and said that he though the game lacked some crowd participation so would Sheila meet him in the Societé to play the important roll of “the crowd”.  This she did and each throw of a boule was interdispersed with a shot of Sheila showing various examples of emotion or, as I prefer to call it,  pulling faces!!

Although less majestic than the mighty chateaux, the half hidden boule de fort in the village, gives you an idea of the real Anjou, the people who live here, who work here, and who play here, well away from the tourist hotspots.

The game has been designated a “Loire Heritage Game” by the Ministry of Culture and I raise my glass of rosé, (Cabernet de Saumur of course not Cabernet d’Anjou), to the beautiful Loire and to ‘La boule de Fort’ and to a new friendly rivalry, (although not friendly on camera, of course).

La Boule de Fort is a typical Angevin sport and just one of the memorable experiences  enjoyed by many and one which are regular guests have yet to experience so, for those of you returning this year, it is something to look forward to not to mention the cheap wine.

à votre

Brian

Holiday, Vacation lets in the Loire Valley

 

PORTES OUVERTES ‘DOMAINE DE LA PALEINE’ LE PUY NOTRE DAME, ‘Village de Charme’

Open Day, Domaine de la Paleine, Brian hosting a tasting.

Bonjour à tous,

We took our Australian guests, to the Domaine de la Paleine in Le Puy Notre Dame for their annual Open Day to the public. The Domaine is a biodynamic wine producer that has been producing wine for more than a century, it consists of 35 hectares planted mostly with Chenin and Cabernet Franc on limestone and chalk soils, and is owned by Marc and Laurence Vincent. It’s involved in the promotion of our new village appellation, Saumur-Puy Notre Dame, an appellation born in October 2009 and Monsieur Vincent is the President of the  Saumur-Puy Notre Dame wine makers association.  His 2010 Saumur-Puy Notre Dame has just been awarded a gold medal by the 2012 Concours des Vins de Saumur as did the 2010 Saumur Champigny.

It was a hot sunny day and on arrival we were met and welcomed by Monsieur Vincent, his wife Laurence and Patrick Nivelleau who is the Chef de Chais, (not forgetting ‘Blackberry’ the Domaine’s Alsation dog who cheerfully greets all  guests)!

Brian knows these wines very well, regarding the multitude of wines produced as amongst the best in the region with a constant emphasis on quality. Courtesy of his friendship with both Marc and Patrick, he is trusted to conduct the

tour for guests and, on this occasion, we started in the vineyards, then explored the underground caves and tunnels, extending for 1.5 kilometres, which maintain a necessary and constant 12C temperature needed for storage and maturation. Here lies more than 100,000 bottles. We saw the old pressoir and machinery and he explained the methods applied to create the famous sparkling wines of the region, Saumur Brut and Crémant de Loire. We then viewed the bottle labelling machine which has a speed of 600 bottles an hour – very impressive! (Always fascinating to find out what work goes into producing your bottle of wine and for the price!!). He then showed us this opaque, black wine glass – have a guess what it’s for – answer at the bottom of the page!  Finally, we entered the spotless chais with its state-of-the-art equipment.  We covered around eighteen tastings of new and older vintages of Saumur blancs, Saumur rouges, Saumur rosés, Saumur-Puy Notre Dames, Bruts, Crémants, and then lastly the Coteaux de Saumur with its delicious honey and walnut palate and citrus fruit finish, a fantastic way to finish the tastings, but all are lovely and delicious to sample. We also discussed the appellation Saint Emilion Grand Cru, Chateau de Pasquette from the newly acquired vineyard in St Emilion, and on tasting the 2010 it was an extremely good expression of the merlot cepage.

These wines are a pleasure to taste but I need to mention that their names are inspired by Marc Vincent’s love for Italy and opera, so trying to get your head around the challenging pronunciation is not easy!  Just to say that we love Italy too and have visited so many times in the past, (all our friends know we almost bought a vineyard in Piedmont before coming to France), and love it with Southern Italy being our favourite, even though it’s noisy, congested, has famous lightning strikes (bit like here really), it’s a great country!  Anyway Brian loves pronouncing the names of the Paleine wines and sounds like a true Italian!   Here we go:- Traviata, Papageno, Pamina, Moderata Cantobile (a red Saumur 2005) or Casta Diva (being more simple to say) from Bellini’s opera ‘Norma’.  Casta Diva by the way is a Saumur blanc, a very limited production of 3,000 bottles and made from the best chenin grapes thus a perfect expression of Chenin blanc. My current favourite, (name wise)  is “Allegro ma non troppo”, a Saumur-Puy Notre Dame oak aged for 2 years.  Brian says it is almost as good as his all time favourite name, “Recioto dela Valpolliccelo Amarone”.  A great name for a stunningly different Italian wine.   I am secretly hoping that one day perhaps there will be a wine named Pagliacci as my all time favourite is “Vesti La Guibba” because I once had the great honour of having an Italian sing this to me in Naples and whilst he bowed down on one knee to sing, I admit the tears just poured down my face.  I will have to have a word with Monsieur Vincent some time and suggest this name – you never know. (Funnily enough our Australian guests, Roslyn and Graham, had  just holidayed in Southern Italy on the Amalfi coast before arriving here in the Loire Valley, so they well appreciated the Italian influence)!

In the village restaurant ‘Le Bouchon Ponot’

They didn’t leave without buying some memorable bottles to drink during the course of their stay, including a bottle of Coteaux de Saumur to pair with their Foie Gras (bought from one of the local producer’s who had stalls in the chais exhibiting gourmet food), for a special meal planned at chez nous later in the week. They also had plans for another meal in the village restaurant after they had asked Jean Yves, the Chef, if he had Ox Cheek as this was one of their favourite meats in Australia?!  He didn’t but offered to prepare it for them one night so no problem!  Here is a picture of us altogether in the Bouchon Ponot Restaurant on Ascension Day evening along with our good neighbours, Robert and Jeanette Guyon, who joined us too while celebrating their birthdays  –and  why not!  By the way, the Ox Cheek was formidable being the main ingredient of “le Boeuf Ponot” Jean-Yve’s take on the famous Boeuf Bourguignon of Burgundy.

Wishing you all happy times.

Sheila

Loire Valley Wine Tours

Le Clos des Guyons, Le Puy Notre Dame.

Oh almost forgot to give you the answer about the black wine glass! It’s for use in blending wine.  The Paleine, like most vineyards around here, have many relatively small parcels of vines scattered throughout the village and it’s hamlets.  Patrick then vinifies each parcel separately and then blends each cuvée, (vat). So a lot of the wine is the same grape from the same vineyard but from different parcels.  This allows the estate wines to take advantage of slightly different soil types, orientations etc.  The reason that the opaque glass is important is that it prevents the blender from being seduced by the colour of the wine, concentrating just on the nose and the taste. Voila!!

A Proud Achievement and an Embarrasment.

First Guinness in Le Puy Notre Dame

I think that we have every right to be proud of our achievements since arriving in France over 10 years ago.  We have become well-integrated, our French gets better all the time and we have very many French friends and acquaintances.  However, above all this I think that my biggest cause for self-congratulation is in persuading Sonia, “la patronne” of our village bar here in Le Puy Notre Dame to order Guinness making it, as far as I am aware, the only bar between Saumur and Vihiers where you can buy the Irish nectar.  The picture is of the first “demi” being pulled.  The system is one I have never seen before.  Sonia pours the Guinness from a can and then puts it on  a small plate attached to the machine which then shakes which causes the  traditional Guinness head to develop.  One of our guests over Christmas who happens to be Irish tried it and said that it compares favourably with Guinness from his homeland.  After a few hours of experimentation it is also proven that it also revitalises flat beer and sparkling wine. – a small step for mankind but a giant leap for clients in the bar.  The only problem is that, having been instrumental in getting Sonia to order it, I feel compelled to keep drinking it so any help from people living locally would be appreciated!!

I am not quite so proud of the second incident which I am about to relate which was, frankly, bloody embarrassing.

We were in the Intermarché supermarket in Doué la Fontaine and I asked a question regarding a particular joint of meat on the butchery counter.  To identify the joint in question I reached over and pointed at it.  The glass that separates the public from the meat is sort of curved and I rested my wrist on the edge – big mistake!!  The glass exploded with a huge bang and shattered into hundreds of small pieces which covered all the meat in the display cabinet which, being Christmas was of the more expensive sort,  being things like venison, guinea fowl stuffed with cépes, confit de canard etc, etc.   The supermarket was packed and they must all have been warmed by the furious red glow coming from my face.  It’s now in the hands of the two Assurance companies so we’ll see what happens.

A day or two later I went into a bar in Doué and joined a group of guys by the bar to discover that one of them was saying that some “mec”, (bloke), had broken the glass in Intermarché and that they had thrown away all the meat in the cabinet – at a value of over €3,000!!  “Yes, I know who did it”, I interjected, “I know him very well” . “”Well, who was it”? was the response.  “Errr…me” I replied.  Which of course cued much uproarious hilarity, totally over the top in my opinion!!  Although “mon copain” Didier did come up with the idea that  I should go to see the Manager of the rival supermarket, “Super-U”, and ask for a reward for sabotaging the opposition’s meat sales just two days before Christmas.  I’ll have a think about that one!!

Have a good 2012!

Brian

Gite vacation lets in the Loire Valley

Living in a French Village

If you read my last post If you will remember that I was going to continue with the story of Jeune, but, having thought about it I now realise that it wasn’t really going anywhere. In addition Peter Mayle has done it much better and  so I am not bothering!

But what I am going to do is to answer a question that several people, who are thinking of moving to France, have asked , which is:- “What is it like living in a small French rural  village like Le Puy Notre Dame?” Well, the short answer is that it is very much like you make it and probably depends more on you, the incomer, than the people of the village.

A short story, (probably apocryphal), will illustrate what I mean. A Brit after living in France for over two years decides to sell his house and move to another French village.  Having not had too happy a time at his old address he determines to cover all the angles this time round. So, before buying his new house he goes to see the Mayor of his chosen village.

“Bonjour Monsieur le Maire, I am thinking of buying a house in the village and moving from my current address.  Can you tell me whether the population will be receptive to foreigners,  like myself,  living amongst them?”  

The Mayor does not answer directly but instead asks how the residents of his old village acted towards him.

“They were horrible”, says the Brit, “they never helped me, hardly ever spoke and were generally very stand-offish”.

The Mayor ponders this for a while and then sadly says;

 “In that case Monsieur I think you will find the villagers here exactly the same. You will probably not be happy here”.

Disappointed at this remark the man sells his existing house and returns to England.

A year later the Mayor finds himself in exactly the same position when another Brit asks to see him and asks  the self-same question to which the Mayor replies in exactly the same manner.

“Well, how did the residents of your old village treat you”?

“They were great”, enthused the prospective villager, “They could not do enough for us, they invited us to every social thing going, helped us with the language, the bureaucracy, and nothing was too much trouble”.

And the Mayor happily gets to his, feet, shakes the hand of the Brit and replies:-

“In that case Monsieur I suspect you will find the villagers here exactly the same!!

Welcome to the village, when are you arriving?”

I am sure you get the point.  You undoubtedly reap what you sow.

The second point I should make is to be very patient.  The French are, in our experience, very private and very much family oriented.  I read recently that someone had said that, before going on holiday, the average Frenchman would drive 200 kms to leave the family dog with his mother before thinking about asking the guy next door.  This, I think is very true and I will give you a further couple of examples.

This very morning I knocked on the door of someone who I thought was Mr. P. who had some land for sale next to our property.  Unfortunately, I knocked on Number 9 and not Number 6, having misread the number, (I must confess at this juncture,  that I had been in the village bar beforehand where it happened to be Lulu’s birthday and I had to console him as he said mournfully, “Xmas is so hard; what with the Xmas celebration themselves, a close friend’s birthday on the 28^th, my birthday on the 30^th. and now the New Year Celebrations”.  Yeah, right Lulu, but a man has to do what a man has to do).

Anyway where was I?  Oh, right, at Number 9 and not Number 6.  Having started to speak to him and indeed offered to buy his land, I wondered why he looked somewhat bemused as he stared, whistfully, at his small front garden, no doubt considering where he was going to rehouse his two garden gnomes. (Incidentally France now has a Gnome Liberation Front, based in the Limousin. They keep kidnapping gnomes from gardens and resiting them in areas of sylvan beauty; alongside rivers or in forest glades – bloody barking if you ask me).

So, eventually, it materialised that he was not in fact Mr P. had never heard of Mr. P and so had no land for sale, but would I like to come in for an aperitif!  For once in my life I refused and continued my search for Mr. P.  which, in fact, was not too difficult as Number 6 was almost directly opposite and slightly to the right, about 100 metres away.  Amazingly the existence of Mr P, at number 6, was a total mystery to the proprietor of No 9!

On another occasion, after paying for their accommodation in the Loire Valley some two months earlier and having slogged for 15 hours from the North Midlands across the channel and down from Calais, an English family, on arrival in the village, asked an old dear where, first of all, le Rue du Moulin was to be found, to which, after much consideration,  the reply was that she had no idea – there cannot be more than a dozen “rues”, in the whole of Le Puy Notre Dame!They then asked another old dear where Clos des Guyons was – “never heard of it”, although she was only 20 metres away, just around the corner.  Finally, they asked an even older dear the same question and, obviously mistaking Clos des Guyons for Charles Guyons, she announced that he had died years ago and that his wife was 92 and in an Old Peoples Home in Nueil sur Layon and that their property was up for sale.

I have no doubt that receiving this news, about the holiday accommodation they had yearned for during the grim English winter, would have been somewhat disconcerting to anyone.  To someone who had been driving for an eternity, complete with kids and mother-in-law, it must have been shattering.  However, they were immensely relieved when the next person they asked happened to be the Mayor and undoubtedly the best dancer in the village, (not that has anything to do with this story, but credit where credit is due)! and, to their great relief,  he safely delivered them to chez nous.  

So, to summarise, it is our opinion that to live happily in a French Village, you need to try very hard and be very patient.

It also goes without saying that being able to talk to your neighbours could also count as something of an advantage.

Oh, and buying a lot of drinks in the bar helps too!!

We wish you Bonne Santé pour la Nouvelle Année 2007! 

I’s funny, I’ve just looked at this post again for some reason and it’s now January 2013.  We’re still in the same village, in the same property.  We’ve just got back from eating with some French friends in Doué la Fontaine, tomorrow we eat at our neighbours across the road.  The weekend after next we are entertaining 6 French friends at chez nous and so on and so forth, you get the picture.  The questions that we tried to answer in 2007 simply wouldn’t occur to us now.  Everything seems normal and this is our home and perhaps that is the best advice anyone can give.  Think of wherever you live in France as home.  If you do that then I would think that the battle is half won.

Cheers !

Brian and Sheila     Accommodation in Loire Valley