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FROM LINCOLNSHIRE TO NORMANDY - AND BACK AGAIN!
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A photo of our back door!
I hope that you will enjoy reading about us! Please check back from time to time as I will endeavour to continue to give you news of our adventures between here and France! In the meantime, to start at the beginning...here in the Lincolnshire Wolds we are surrounded by the countryside with distant views to die for, and a keen sense of the changing seasons, but from time to time we have to leave our rural idyll, and take the journey south, to France.
When the time comes, we send our little Jack Russell to fat camp, from which she always benefits - coming back looking like a whippet and having had the satisfaction of organizing all the other inhabitants by yapping really loudly from morning till night! Once the birds (Hercules the Brahma cockerel and his 2 wives, other various hens, geese and ducks) are also catered for, usually by pleading with our kind neighbours to throw them some corn in our absence, or bribing a child of ours to stay put for a week, we can load the car and set the compass due south.
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It may seem strange to the outsider idly reading this page that we should want to leave our farmhouse and rolling countryside at all, but there is a reason - we have another life! We travel to rural Normandy and unpack our bags to settle into our little stone house in a pretty village, set on a hill, where we have many French friends who are always ready for any social event!
We actually go to France for work, but this is where work is so much fun…we buy fabulous, quality, beautiful French things for selling in our shop, at the same time restraining ourselves from keeping it all, because we only buy what we love, and the French made such gorgeous things in the days of their Emperor(s)!!!
Our little house is near the Suisse Normande (Little Switzerland in Normandy) so is well located for travelling to the professional French fairs, and during the summer there is an endless array of vide-greniers ( translated as attic sales) to trawl for that beautiful textile or irresistible light fitting no longer wanted by the seller.
The French are so wonderful, particularly in Normandy, where there is an appreciation, (probably more so now that there are 65 intervening years) of the role played by the Allies in the Battle of Normandy which was so decisive in the future of the Second World War. Many thousands of lives were lost and you do not have to go far in the department of Calvados to see war graves, where you can stop for quiet contemplation. Poignant remembrance of lives never fully lived, but laid down for the greater good; we never tire of visiting those cemeteries - us, and countless others.
Rural French life takes the form of working, eating and visiting, Sunday being the calm, quiet day for family ‘get togethers’ or village events, it is never boring – there is always something to do and people to see, and we find it incredibly rewarding. Except for August, when Paris is deserted and all the Parisiens are at the coast – Normandy beaches included, so you just can't get a table anywhere!
Once we have done our work and have our treasures loaded to bring back to Blighty, we close up the shutters and say ‘goodbye’ to our friends. Hopefully we have enough on board to bring delight to all you Ebayers looking for a wonderful piece of French craftsmanship and history, that you can add to your home and love for years to come, but joy! No sooner have we got back into our routine with our family, dogs and other creatures, than we have to return for more. What a life!
February 2009
Well our last trip to France was COLD!! But it has also been cold here, so we definitely had all the right clothes packed!
We had a fabulous time, visiting our friends and neighbours, finding a few delicious treasures to bring back for our shop and the obligatory eating and drinking of course! We also discovered a new place whilst on our trip, “One of the prettiest villages in France” said the sign at the start of the village. This was in the very bottom part of Normandy, a whisker from the department of Mayenne, in a gorgeous area called the Alpes Mancelles where the village of St Ceneri de Gerei nestles on a ridge with the fast flowing River Sarthe at its feet.
We crossed the bridge stopping to look at the high river water, lapping at the banks with only a foot to go before it would invade the gardens of those whose houses were at its edge. It seemed so precarious and yet, it must be like that every winter with no harm done, because these were old stone houses that had been built centuries ago, when people knew a thing or two about the river.
Then up into the village where the ragged stone into grew houses, pretty and neat. After a stroll, inspecting the village and the fast-flowing river, we rewarded ourselves with a delicious French hot chocolate and Tarte Tatin in a fabulous timber-framed hostelry, open despite being a bitter cold and sleeting Sunday afternoon in January! Even in the deepest and greyest of the winter, you could see how this was considered so lovely.
Somehow the French countryside looks tidier and more organised then our rural lanes, certainly more so than here, in Lincolnshire. Still, this is home, and we love it. I do still spend my time planning our next trip, which I would say (Euro exchange rate allowing) will be in March when you can see the tiny wild daffodils and the primroses all along the hedgerows, and I just can’t wait!
Photos of St Ceneri de Gerei
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Easter 2009
Well we were a little late in getting to France, so we took a trip across over the Easter holiday. Instead of the wild daffodils, which I hoped to see, we saw banks and verges just full of pretty little cowslips – soft lemon yellow everywhere, mixed with pear and cherry blossom on the trees in the orchards and hedgerows. Spring is so promising! We also saw our first pair of swallows swooping past our house and church, chattering away like they do to one another.
In our French garden we have a large morello cherry tree which was just getting into full swing as we left, and goodness did it look delightful with the tree bench beneath, looking for all the world like a paper doilly wrapped around its trunk.
At last the weather has perked up, it has become much milder and even sometimes sunnier, and the brocantes and vide-greniers will soon be underway with gusto. In May there is one which covers a road 5km in length and has 2000 stalls. It is like a festival in atmosphere, and goes on all weekend. The food is good if you like saucisson and frites, but if you are a vegetarian, you just have to order the frites!
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