Tuesday 24 November 2009

Rocks in Black an' White...



A week or so ago we went to dinner at a neighbour's across the road from us. Our neighbour is a lovely bloke in his early 70's and yet he still does it all himself. Célibataire officially, he is twice divorced and once-left by a long term lover, however his eyes twinkle at the girls and invariably he gets one staying over for 24 hrs on her day off and then one or two others that visit during the week. It keeps him young he says...

...and he also creates really good dishes although when for so many people as we were; eight, he will apologise and do the same menu - I have told him he needn't apologise when it is so consistently good, but he will insist and so, once again, we sat down to three "first" courses;
1) a salad of thinly sliced cucumbers in lemon juice,
2) a dish of sliced oven-softened and peeled yellow and red peppers and,
3) a superb salad of thinly sliced huge beef tomatoes grown in his own garden sprinkled with fresh herbs and usually fresh garden grown basil although for basil, this year has not for him, been too good.

This was then followed by a superb risotto with wild mushrooms. A plate of perfect cheeses, a Brie de Meaux, some chèvre, an époisses and some Abondance and then a fruit salad... except that he forgot the salad because of an overwhelming guest.

She'd done it once before; slapping a dessert, a tart of fraise or framboise into his small oven and then forgotten it. It was well overdone by the time the smell reached us as we sat in his far off sitting room drinking aperitifs of rum with home made lime quarters in dark sugar. Still, she insisted we try it, and all but the Missus did as we were told. It pissed Neighbour off no end, he is the type that would rather you didn't and again he forgot his own carefully made dessert. This time however, she turns up with her English guy in tow and again has neither asked nor suggested but just got her Anglais to prepare, cook and bring along (of all things) a Bread & Butter Pudding.

After that superbly light and refreshingly tasty meal we had to try the Bread & Butter Pudding with its rough bread crust corners pushing up through the damp and covered in sugar.

And it got to be too much. Besides which it was really not very good...

How to spoil a French dinner. Indeed it is so un-French. We were surprised when we first came to live here that guests did not bring a bottle of wine which they then expected to swig during the meal with little regard for what the cook has decided to serve as is the habit in England.

He could at least have tried Delia's luxury version.

And throughout it all, at the start of the Autumn Rugby Internationals; we realised that France was playing South Africa in Toulouse, it was on the telly and we couldn't watch it....

andouillette à la moutarde...

Sunday 22 November 2009

Autumn Colours No., 3











We live at about 550metres above sea level and at this time of year that is roughly 150 to 200 metres below the cloud level. However we have a weird phenomenon at the end of each autumn when the cloud level over the lake builds up and the air temperature causes the cloud to either rise or fall and sometimes rather than be just underneath it, or worse, in it, we find we are above it... it doesn't last long and usually as winter's battle over autumn is won, the cloud rises and we live beneath the blanket of cloud while the snow capped mountains around us stay in brilliant sunshine.

The pictures above taken from my balcony show the cloud lying low over Lake Geneva which is approx., 380 metres above sea level...

Interestin' eh?

Friday 20 November 2009

Thursday 19 November 2009

Autumn Colours No.,1


I had been out on my first 90 minute midweek off-road walk since my knee operation and had felt good upto a point when I needed a breather and a swig of water.
While walking, I was looking for 'that' autumn colours shot and had traipsed about taking the odd shot from a slightly different angle of maple, beech or chestnut leaves. As I took off my pack I became aware of a tired wasp slowly moving about some nearby berries in a last ditch effort to find some sugar before the eventual cold of winter and the approach of death. My little Leica did the rest.

There are times of camera and no mojo...
and then,
There are times of mojo and no camera...


This was one of those days when I think I had both.

Sunday 1 November 2009

Sunday 1st November ...

On the GR5 below the Col de Bise at 1915m heading south towards the Cornettes des Bise and the Col that leads down to Chapelle d'Abondance...



A warm day despite the forecast and whereas I should have slaved over cold stones and wet mortar pointing the front wall of the house before the weather changes and winter arrives I decided I should benefit; and my wounded knee too, from a short walk above the cloud, above the tree line in the mountains and maybe take my Moleskine sketch book to try and capture a huge rock face in pencil, pen & ink...

Having tried it and viewed the results, I thought that mountain sketches are best left to those done by the great Wainwright. How he so meticulously drew those northern English hills; and so beautifully too, I shall never know.



The colours this autumn have been stunning; breathtakingly beautiful, with the golden leaves on the maples and the beeches inbetween the dark evergreen pines, still clinging on until the winds of winter loosen them.

So, then home to while away an hour or two of daylight warm autumn Sunday afternoon mixing cement and sand and finishing off the stonework on the front of the house... I might start to call it a cottage soon...