Angeline's cats

The village of La Romieu is in the Gers. It is a pretty village and we stopped off there on our way home from out trip to the Gers a few weeks back, largely because we had heard of the legend associated with the village.

The legend of Angeline's cats dates back to the 14th century. A forester and his wife had a daughter Angeline. Sadly Angelines parents died when when was only 3 years old and she was adopted by neighbours.

Between 1342 and 1344 there was a great famine in the village of La Romieu. Crops failed and in desperation the villagers resorted to eating the cats of the village.

But the little girl Angeline adored her cats and her adopted parents agreed that she could hide two cats, one male one female, in the attic.

Eventually conditions improved and there were crops again but with no cats left the rats proliferated and a plague of rats began to threaten the crops.

In the meantime Angeline's cats had done what cats do and produced many kittens. Angeline agreed to give 20 cats to the village on condition that no cats would ever be harmed in the village again.

And so the rats disappeared and the village was saved. According to the legend Angeline's appearance gradually began to resemble her beloved cats as she grew older.

Much later in the 1960s a sculptor, Maurice Serreau, heard a woman recounting the legend to her grandchildren. He began to create sculptures of cats to adorn the buildings of the village and now they can be found in windows and niches, on pillars and posts all around the village.

There is also a small bust of Angeline with her cat like ears in the village square.

and the answer to yesterday's puzzle - there are six cats in this picture

how many cats can you see?

behind this picture lies a story.

How many cats can you find?

Tomorrow I will tell you the story of Angelina and her cats.

vive la dance

The folk'n'jazz "ceilidh celtique"was last night and all was well.


There were 48 people there, more than our usual audience, and best of all almost all of them did some dancing. In fact by the end we were pushing the tables back to make more space. It was particularly pleasing to see a big group of people from our Caylus French dancing course there and they all seemed to have fun. There was certainly no difficulty with getting them up on the floor to dance.                                                                                                                                  

The music provided by Trevor and friends was great and my dual language calling seemed to work. Between dances folk'n'jazz singers performed to give the dancers time to get their breath back so there was something for everyone.

Organising an event like this is always something of a stressful time as one always wants it to be a success and with dancing you can never be sure how willing the audience will be to participate. There is one huge simplifying factor here though - folk'n'jazz events are always free (it's a condition of our free use of the salle des fêtes) so covering costs financially is never an issue. Trevor often plays at events with friends so calling on them to help out at times like this is easy. The rest of the entertainers are folk'n'jazz regulars.

So now life can get back to normal - and its Friday - so tonight we are ........going dancing of course!

brain on overdrive

Can't blame internet for the lack of post yesterday my excuse is

it's tonight. My brain is a touch on overdrive as that caller/animatrice is me - I've called odd dances in English and French before but this will be all evening.

duck bones

Ducks reign supreme in these parts and no vin nouveau soiree would be complete without a good helping of duck in some form or other. The Promilhanes version is duck bones ( some villages use the term Fritons de Canard, some Gratounade) and it means just what it says. Imagine the Sunday roast chicken carcass at the end of the meal and you know the sort of thing to expect.

Its a great example of the French tradition of wasting nothing and any excuse for a celebration.

Gastronomy it i, the wine is pretty awful and it can be a good idea to fill up on the soup course but its a fun evening all the same. The salle des fetes fills to capacity every year and we always go with Maggie and Bill whose holiday house is in Promilhanes.

Don't you just love the little finger - my excuse is I broke it some years ago and it sticks up  like that all on its own - even when sucking on duck bones

all wrapped up

Its now official, summer is over for the year, the geraniums are replaced by winter pansies at the windows,

the summer kitchen is in storage mode and plants wrapped up.

The pool has also been winterised - that's a horrid job on oh so many levels and has taken the best part of two days - its so much nicer opening it up in the Spring!



No internet yesterday so no post, other pressures keep today's post at a minimal level.

vin nouveau at Moniques

Any excuse for a party, there have been lots of vin nouveau evenings in the surrounding villages lately. Our favourite though has to be the 3rd Thursday in November at L'auberge Lou Bourdié. We have been every year since we moved here and it has been the subject of many a blog post. The first year we were on our own and Monique sat us on a table with members of her family. For the last two years we have had a table of eight with four nationalities represented ( English, Canadian, Belgian and French).



No year has ever quite matched the madness of the first time we went - either we are just accustomed to it or that year was particularly crowded. Last night the restaurant was packed again, it was nice to have a big table of our friends and despite the number of people there was still dancing.

The menu is the same every year - duck of course - but everything cooked to Monique's usual high standards.









Sylvie Nauges and friends provide the music and "le monsieur qui apprend son instrument " gets to play too.

He had special fun playing with the new fiddle player in Sylvie's band

Monique always really enjoys Trevor's spot - it stands us in good stead over the year for free aperitifs and reduced bills when we eat there during the rest of the year!

exceeding expectations

As an ex English primary school teacher I have "done" The Romans countless times - made the clay oil lamps, draped the kids in sheets, made the cardboard villas and paper maché volcanoes. We've visited Roman forts galore in England, been to Pompeii, Herculaneum and Rome so when we agreed to join Maggie and Bill to see Roman excavations in the Gers I was all ready to be underwhelmed.

But how wrong can you be !

Our first stop was a fairly new museum built around the excavations of a Roman villa at Eauze. I was so impressed with the whole museum "experience". It began with what seemed a rather odd computer generated film with real actors superimposed telling a story of daily life in the villa, next to the ruins there were models recreating how the villa was thought to have looked. The excavations themselves were amazing and after the  film and the model it was so easy to visualise how the villa would have been. Little details such as markers showing where certain artefacts had been found ( eg the stylus used for writing on a clay slate) reminded you of little moments in the film.







The structure built to protect the excavations from the elements was very pleasing too.

Next stop was an older museum site at Saviac - another Roman villa - this time the outstanding feature was the number of amazing mosaics on the site - almost complete floors, one room after another just beautiful! I love mosaics and this was mosaic heaven.










In another week or so the mosaics will all be covered with sand to protect them over the winter months so we were there just in time.

The icing on the cake was a quick visit to the museum in Montreal where there were even more mosaics discovered at Saviac - being displayed indoors meant the colours were even better

what no posts?

so where have we been?

only feeble internet connection and for that we had to be on the loo!


more details of our jolliday to come, tonight back to our own bed.

spot the difference

Found it yet?

The Laguepie starpatch ladies call it a "chameau" when they have pieced a patch wrongly. Its amazing how you can miss them as you go along. Once seen of course it is obvious.

So when is the most annoying time to discover a "chameau" - answer when the top is glued and tacked to the wadding and backing!

Its all fixed now and I can get back to drawing  the quilting design. I'm going to use this to practice quilting before I get started on a big quilt.

I had dressed in scruffy clothes in preparation for a day in the garden tackling the winterising of the pool, a horrible job that has to done sometime but there is already too much wet about! Its a really damp and drizzly day outside, matched inside  by the kitchen being full of steam because of the puddings. So it looks like the pool will have to wait and I can console myself with some sewing ( sounds good to me)

stir up Saturday

The traditional stir up Sunday is 23rd November this year but I have always traditionally made my Christmas puddings in September to give them time to mature. I wasn't going to bother this year as not many people at our Kidsmas dinner will eat it and I did have some ingredient issues. Christmas pudding and mince pies are most definitely not on the Christmas menu in French households. I have introduced mince pies to some gatherings but I suspect they are eaten more with interest and out of politeness than anything else. The most elusive ingredient in my trusty Delia Smith pudding recipe was suet. I often buy it in England to make sure I've got it the cupboard as I haven't seen it on any of the English products shelves in the supermarkets but this year I didn't have any. But last week a friend saw some for sale and gave me two boxes so a Christmas pud was back on our menu. I decided to make two small ones, one for Kidsmas and one for us  at Christmas back home




So it was out with the trusty Delia Smith's Christmas - my Christmas cooking bible for decades past - it is one of those cookery books which falls open at the "well used" and somewhat grubby pages.
 The pages with the Christmas day schedule is multi-annotated in the margins - a record of changing meal time patterns and numbers of diners over the passing years.

A bit of creativity with the ingredients and the mix is ready for the traditional family stir up and a day for all the flavours to mix. Tomorrow I'll be getting creative with the pudding bowls - I've only got one but I do have a big French breakfast cup which should do the job for the second pudding.

I wonder what he's wishing for?

That job done its back to the garden for some more tidying up as the sun has come out for the afternoon.

This evening we're going to a Bal Trad, preceded by a "scene ouvert" where Trevor and a friend are planning to play.

Never a dull moment - I suppose that depends on your point of view but it suits us "très bien"

à la Fawlty

Today we went out for lunch with  Maggie and Bill, our Canadian friends, and Gill and Leon who used to live in Varen but moved to Gaillac. We haven't seen Gill and Leon for ages so it was a nice get together.



The restaurant is one we have been to before, the food is very good,it's great value, has a nice atmosphere and is usually, as it was today, pretty full.

The service today did amuse us though - apparently one of the staff was off sick so the owner was a touch stressed and we were pushed to hurry to make our minds up ( very un French) and even had to ask for plates for our main course. It brought to mind the service at Fawlty Towers.

Never mind though the food was up to standard and 4 courses with wine for 17euros is great value.

This afternoon it is raining so I am planning a hour or two in my sewing den before making the "petit gateaux de Sue" for Salles tonight. I have finished piecing the central part of my Christmas table runner now I'm doing the border but that is at the development stage - in other words I didn't like the first idea so it's back to the drawing board.I need to get on with it as I want to get it done for our trip back to England for Kidsmas which is fast approaching.

whether we need it or no

It's Thursday so market day in Villefranche. We  thought about it and actually didn't really need anything as we are emptying the fridge before a couple of days away but we went anyway. We do so love strolling around the market, at this time of year it's not crowded but there are still plenty of stalls. I made up for not needing loads of veg by buying plants, some heather to finish off the window boxes and a blue hydrangea bush. We also  had time for a grand crème in the cafe overlooking the square, sitting outside in the sun.

Trevor, music man extraordinaire, is in demand as always, This afternoon he is playing in a concert at a retirement home , accompanying Edwige and Alain. For me, as well as planting the hydrangea and heathers, it was  time to start on the protecting of plants against the frost, although if the extreme temperatures forecast in some quarters do happen it will  be a waste of time.

Constructing the leafy blanket for the banana plants is a great way of double tasking!



This evening it is to be a pizza and a nice bottle of red wine by the fire night  - after all that hard work I deserve a treat and an evening off cooking ( don't tell anyone but there's not been a lot of cooking this week as we've been out such a lot!)

Autumn

We are having a lovely Autumn season here. The weather has been perfects for ensuring the leaves have stayed on the trees while changing colour and everywhere is looking lovely. Lots of blue skies too as a bonus . The only downside is a still grumbling Gnu has meant we have not been able to go walking as much as we would like.




Its been a bit windier over the last couple of days so it won't be long now before the branches are bare and the urgent garden job will be leaf clearing.

It was east to think of a theme for today's English class - the children thought leaf rubbings were like magic!