Isak Dinesen

What is a man, when you come to think upon him,
but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning with infinite
artness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?


There was such a small man doing just that role on the route N21
with a large arched sign right by him direction Pissot yesterday

It could only be France

When is summer over?

Now when I go to Bordeaux the shops have coats on the rails, radiators and insulation
are on special offer in the Brico publicity. I have just returned from England and every
clothes shop has the school winter uniform in the windows.

We are told to eat seasonally, live seasonally but why can't we shop seasonally?

Soon the night markets will end, and meeting everyone will come to an end for another year.
I miss most the social life that is so easy in the summer. BBQ's, crisp white wine and salads.
When I asked someone if they want anything from an English supermarket they said get them some Lemsip

The weather says 30 degrees for the next few days.

I was going to the beach today

There is nothing more to say.

Seasonal produce

I have been taking an active interest in the produce available
at the local markets. Between the locals Miramont seems to be
more farmer orientated and I also confess to being taken with
some of the gadgets and plants on offer. We British are often
said to be gastronomic bystanders when it comes to French cuisine,
however having seen Donkey meat sausages at a market recently
I have my doubts.

Autumn

Sure sign of Autumn approaching. X factor on TV.

Sure sign it's still summer as mozzies are still coming in when the windows

are open and the lights are on.

Sure sign of too many oysters and local wine and getting older.

Staying in wanting peace and quiet on a Saturday night

Soggy weekend in June

Looked out of my window and I can see a soggy weekend in June.

There is a Medieval fete in Montflanquin, Brocante in Duras and

a wine festival in Eymet. The calendar says August 15th!

A holiday day in France and it feels like I want to light the fire, make a hot

drink and sit and watch the Olympics.

Perhaps the sun will come out later.

Gymnastics reminds me of the weather. It was dull yesterday.

Dordogne

We have been traveling around 'our' department, especially as the weather has been cooler in the past few days.

Interestingly the northern Perigord towns and villages are a startling contrast to the Eymet and 'our' locality.

For one 'we' being both local farmers and residents have obviously seen more sun, the grass is considerably

less green here (and we buy less sun cream I suppose) however as the purpose of the trip was property seeking which is

always because the "grass is always greener", we have concluded it is much warmer and more pleasant here!

Sarlat was a particularly attractive area but like mid wales and just as green.

When asking at a brasserie are there lots of English here we were told no, Dutch residents actually.

So there we are. It may have rained for considerably more than 40 days and 40 nights this year but we have

more 'southern' weather here and as one of the reasons we left the UK was appalling weather and lack of summer

we have concluded that we got it right the first time!

Footnote. We are in for cloudy weather looking at the forecast so maybe the Biarritz blogger is looming!