Peregrinations

So far this Summer

Published on 2010-08-18 03:12:00

The weather has oscillated between dreich and sweltering. Yesterday we spent a lovely sunny day at the Lac de Lacanau, today we've cancelled an outing to Le Moulleau because it's grey and raining. In fact weather-wise it's sometimes difficult to remember if we're in Scotland or in France.Stop Press: now it's hothothot again and we're beach-bound for the second day in a row.Most singular experience in Scotland was a bluegrass concert in a church in Moffat with Craig Duncan and friends all the way

Essendiéras

Published on 2010-08-12 13:52:00

E had a riding lesson here this morning.

Le Potager

Published on 2010-08-11 12:21:00

Lots of tomatoes this year.

In the Lake

Published on 2010-08-10 11:32:00

At Le Camping du Lac, Plazac.

Tourtoirac

Published on 2010-08-09 10:51:00

Visited the Grotte de Tourtoirac. Incredible stalagmites and stalactites. Took this before the guide said that photography was forbidden. Ooops.

Méchoui

Published on 2010-08-08 11:06:00

Down by the river for the village méchoui.

Périgueux

Published on 2010-08-07 09:28:00

Last day of Mimos, the festival of mime and street theatre.

Au supermarché

Published on 2010-08-06 11:27:00

The Carrefour Market in Saint-Martial-d'Alabarède has a special section for British tourists. They seem to hanker after Coleman's mustard, mushy peas, and Vegemite.

Skimming stones

Published on 2010-08-05 11:23:00

On the river Isle at Les Chambrettes.

A Rainy Day

Published on 2010-08-04 12:03:00

Visited Saint-Robert in the neighbouring département of Correze. A very pretty village, even in the rain.

By the walnut tree

Published on 2010-08-03 10:33:00

This is the walnut tree that we look on to from the terrace of the house. The walnuts are still green. Yesterday I received a book that I won on the This French Life site, it's all about truffles and walnuts and the cuisine of the Dordogne in general. It's at the top of the LibraryThing list in the sidebar. Gotta go, MsMac has just texted to say she's only five minutes away!

En route for the Dordogne

Published on 2010-08-02 12:08:00

It's a lovely sunny day and having arrived back in Bordeaux last night after our Scottish holidays, we're now on our way to the Dordogne If this works and I can blog via email from my phone, then I may treat you to a photo a day in August. But don't hold your breath.

The State of Me

Published on 2010-07-30 08:03:00

In a very lopsided book swap, I ended up with a lovely new copy of Nasim Marie Jafry's The State of Me, and she got and old yellowed copy of Le Scaphandre et le Papillon.I've been reading Nasim's blog for a while now, but I hadn't got round to reading her book. The State of Me tells the story of Helen Fleet, a young Scottish woman (like me!) who studies French at university (like me!) in the early eighties (like me!). Helen comes to France to do her year abroad (like me!) and develops ME (like N

I write like ..

Published on 2010-07-17 17:24:00

All you have to do is paste in a blog post and hey presto. I'm sure I don't write like DFL - not enough footnotes for a start. I write likeDavid Foster WallaceI Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Hot and Haunting

Published on 2010-07-03 11:57:00

Last Tuesday I got to tick an item off my "things to do before I die" list. I saw Bob Dylan in concert.I was exceptionally excited but there were several considerations dampening my enthusisam. First the heatwave: it was absolutely boiling hot outside and a bit like a steamy pit of writhing animals inside the Patinoire de Mérideck, especially in the standing area where we were. (Aside - remember that post about Charles Edward Stuart's daughter's lover the Archbishop of Bordeaux? Well, one of hi

Catch up

Published on 2010-07-01 16:00:00

So it turns out that I'm not even very good at regular drivel. But I've actually been quite busy doing stuff n'at since the last time I drivelled here.First I spent a day at arc en reve, Bordeaux's architecture centre, for an exhibition and a lecture by Bjark Ingals of BIG. Interesting.Then there was E's eighth birthday. Eight's a good age, I think. She had her ears pierced. A couple of days before we had this done, that is after I had already promised that yes, now she was old enough to have ho

Charlotte Stuart

Published on 2010-06-13 14:22:00

I've been reading Frank McLynn's biography of Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) and discovered the story of his daughter, Charlotte, which I hadn't ever come across before.Charlotte (1753-1789) was the illegitimate daughter of Charles and his mistress Clementina Walkinshaw. However the Jacobite prince battered Clementina and she left him taking her seven-year-old daughter with her. Because of her illegitimate status, Charlotte spent a good part of her life in various convents unable

Baguettes to Bordeaux?

Published on 2010-06-10 14:49:00

There was a bit of a discussion going on on Twitter yesterday sparked by this article in the Guardian which claims that increasing numbers of Britons living in France are having all of their grocery shopping, including wine and baguettes, sent over from in vans from Asda. Then l'Anglais à Paris reacted to the article with a blog post entitled: "Why the hell did you move to France in the first place then?"You'd think I'd have learned by now not to read the comments on any piece of writing on the

Rocking and Rolling

Published on 2010-06-06 15:41:00

Summer started for the third or fourth time this year on Friday, with temperatures shooting up into the thirties only to tumble back down to barely twenty this afternoon.Anyway, the weekend kicked off well when I met up with the lovely Anne from Papilles & Pupilles for lunch in the sun on the Place des Chartrons. It was nice to finally get to chat with someone whose blog I've been reading for years. Anne's is one of the most widely read blogs in France and if you're ever looking for a recipe

Drivelling

Published on 2010-06-03 11:00:00

On the principle that the more you eat, the more you want to eat and that the more you have sex — actually that one may only work under a certain age — I have decided to force myself to write here a little more regularly and see what happens. It might be just a few lines of drivel, or even just a photo with a brief description, but at least I will be writing. Right? Righting. Write?So what's been happening since I last wrote in April (yikes!)? Classes have slowly wound down and we're now in

Moliets again

Published on 2010-04-27 14:36:00

Since I started this blog, I think we've been to Moliets on the Atlantic coast three or four times. It's a great seaside resort, perfect for a quick getaway with kilometres and kilometres of pristine sandy beaches, pine forests criss-crossed with walking and cycling paths, a few laid-back bars and restaurants, and a golf course, le Courant d'Huchet and even cypress knees. Oh, and villas with pools available for a tiny fraction of the extortionate high-season rate if you can go in springtime.Actu

Water

Published on 2010-04-06 10:46:00

So we went off to the Gers for the weekend with my Mum and it rained and rained and rained. And then I found a dead mouse in amongst the pots and pans, and so we came home.In other watery news, it was nice to see my blog reviewed by Keith on A Taste of Garlic, although I was a little dismayed to have confirmation that that iPhone in the toilet story is never going to die. A friend recently told me he thinks of me every time he goes to the toilet, and grips his own iPhone a little tighter on thos

Little Boxes

Published on 2010-03-22 07:19:00

Last week I accompanied Z's class on a school trip to the Cité Frugès in Pessac.This housing development was designed by Le Corbusier and built in 1926. It was a visionary project for the era - individual modern housing for the workers from the local steelworks, and it is hard to believe that such a contemporary look was possible over eighty years ago. It seems, however, that the first inhabitants were far from overwhelemed by the look and practicality of their new homes. The houses were among

Nature Writing

Published on 2010-03-15 03:04:00

I wanted to tell you a little bit more about that amazing sea of lava in Lanzarote - the tumultuous impression of jaggedness you experience as you survey its massive extent; that chaos of lava rocks straining towards the sea. I would have added something more perhaps about the variety of colours highlighted on the volcanoes' flanks, as cloud shadows scudded/glided/slid/oozed over their surfaces. But it just won't do.I read a piece by Andrew Greig in the Scottish Review of Books last weekend in

Lanzarote

Published on 2010-03-10 08:26:00

This time last week we were enjoying summer temperatures in Lanzarote. On our return, it was quite a shock to discover that Bordeaux is still plunged in the chilly depth of an inhabitually bleak winter.Several people had warned us that Lanzarote is a volcanic island meaning that the landscape is grey and arid while I associated the word Lanzarote with the worst of shudder-inducing British tourism. There was none of that and we loved it. The hues of the volcanic landscape actually range from a du