Accommodation, Blogging, Flowers & gardens, Food

Happy New Year for 2017

January 2, 2017 Rosemary Kneipp 13 Comments

And there you go – another year has just flipped by. Admittedly, we did spend a whole three months travelling – first to Australia and India in the winter, then to Italy, Austria and Germany on a cycling holiday in the summer, especially the Romantic Road, and finally New York and Boston in the autumn. As usual we are starting the year in front of the fire at Closerie Falaiseau but with below zero temperatures outside.

The iconic photo in front of the Taj Mahal

Jean Michel is halfway through installing an automatic watering system so we can create a mini-Giverny. However, everything is taking longer than it should and the cold weather has come too soon. The back garden is full of clay which makes digging trenches deep enough to stop the pipes freezing is a complicated busines. We’re hoping it will be ready to go by spring.

The current state of the garden while the watering installation is in progress.

I have just bought a studio flat in the historical quarter of Blois to rent as holiday accommodation to overseas visitors. It’s wonderfully situated and there is even access to a little garden to relax in after an exhausting day visiting the Loire Valley châteaux. Another project to keep us busy!

The view from the shared garden of the studio flat in Blois

Our travel plans this year are a week in Cyprus in the spring (any suggestions about accommodation and places to see are very welcome), our usual month’s cycling in June (the destination will depend on the weather) and hopefully a week in Istanbul in the autumn (provided things have quietened down by then and our home exchange still exists).

Giant holly bush in Molineuf during one of our walks

The world situation is not very inspiring at the present but we believe the best remedy is to remain positive and enjoy life to the fullest. We are lucky enough to live in a beautiful region that is a constant source of discovery by bike or on foot.

Crossing the Loire with our bikes to go to Chambord

On the professional front, as well as being a sworn translator for the Blois Tribunal de Grande Instance, I am now an expect sworn translator for the Orléans Court of Appeal. I’m still freelancing as a legal and technical translator full time, with another two and a half years to go before retirement. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to leave me much time to do much apart from cycling, gardening and travelling which explains why I don’t blog a lot these days.

Standing in front of the Appeal Court of Orléans before being sworn in as an expert translator

My second blog, Loire Daily Photo, gets a bit more attention because it only takes about 10 minutes a day to post a photo and a short text in French and English. It also continues to get me out and about on days when I might tend to stay inside too much.

Homemade foie gras and champagne in front of the 400-year old fireplace

We are continuing our intermittent fasting twice a week and it is very much a part of our normal routine. With our homemade foie gras on the menu every evening from Christmas to New Year, our fast days brought welcome respite! We certainly feel it helps our general state of health.

We have definitely shelved our “little house” project and have received our demolition permit. Now we just have to move every thing out of it that we have been storing since we bought Closerie Falaiseau. But the second barn needs to be fixed up first :). A lot of things will be going to the next garage sale.

In the meantime, I’d like to wish all my readers a very happy and fulfilling 2017. Thank you for following me and sharing through your comments.

Food, French language

Friday’s French – gigue, gigot, gigoter, jig, leg

December 29, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 6 Comments

Susan Walter from Days on the Claise was wondering recently about the use of gigue and gigot when referring to a leg of venison or lamb.

I was not aware of the term gigue as I don’t often buy venison! So I checked on the etymology and learnt that it comes from Old French gigue (1120-1150) meaning a musical instrument with 3 strings, which in turn comes from high German giga, a stringed instrument.

The shape of the instrument appears to have led to the use of gigot to describe a leg of deer or lamb which was then used jokingly to describe a person’s leg, particularly when dancing as in remuer le gigot, literally to shake a leg which, in English, of course, means to get a move on.

There seems to be no real explanation for the modern use of gigue instead of gigot in the case of venison (gigue de chevreuil), first attested in 1838, while gigot is reserved for lamb and mutton.

The term gigot also appears in the expression manches à gigot to describe mutton-leg sleeves which were first seen in the 1820s and early 1830s. By the time Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837 however, they had completely disappeared in favour of a more subdued style. They came back in again towards the end of her reign in the 1890s more overblown than ever – much to the ridicule of the media – until 1906 when the fashion once again changed.

Although it looks very similar, gigoter is a bit more complicated. Gigoter means to wriggle around. You’d use it for a baby moving its arms and legs all the time, for example, or a little child who can’t stay still:

Il n’arrêtait pas de gigoter dans mes bras – He wouldn’t stop wriggling when I picked him up.

Arrête de gigoter. Il faut manger maintenant. – Stop wriggling about. It’s time to eat now.

Etymology-wise, there are two possibilities. It is either a derivative of gigot or it comes from the Old French verb giguer meaning “to kick” (1694) or “to move its legs around” (1718, when speaking of an animal in agony). It also used to mean “to dance” but has lost that meaning now. Guincher, which is slang for “to dance”, may be derived from the same word though.

Which (naturally) makes you think of jig, a form of lively folk dance which developed in 16th-century England, and was quickly adopted on the Continent where it eventually became the final movement of the mature Baroque dance suite (from French gigue; Italian and Spanish giga).

My apologies to Susan for not coming up with a better explanation!

Architecture, Loire Valley, Walking

A Christmas Day Walk above Montrichard

December 25, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 3 Comments

It’s 25th December and overcast. The sun has obviously decided not to waste its energy on people about to tuck into Christmas lunch inside their homes where they won’t know if it rains or shines. We celebrated Christmas with just the two of us last night as our four adult children are all elsewhere this year, which is not a problem of course. We need some rest! We’ve had our brunch and are ready to go for a little hike. Despite the lack of sun, it’s really quite balmy at 9°C. Our recent walks have been a lot chillier.

I’ve chosen Montrichard as our starting point because there is a GR hiking trail high above the Cher River and it seems there are even troglodytes. We try to hike in winter in places where we can’t cycle in the winter.

One of the Renaissance buildings – this is Hôtel d’Effiat, 16th and 17th century

We park in Montrichard and there is not a soul in sight. It’s easy to take photographs with no one around – not even cars! The ruins of the mediaeval castle are omnipresent. We hadn’t realised how many Renaissance buildings there are in Montrichard.

There are also several brightly-coloured 15th century half-timbered houses.

Our GR trail takes us up a hill past the 11th century Preacher’s House, the only house that survived when Philippe Auguste ordered the town to be razed to the ground by fire in 1188 to get rid of the English invaders.

We walk up steep winding steps until we reach the highest point where the castle stands.

The path then takes us through a little wood and down another steep path.

An unexpected little boat — An unexpected boat, looking very bright in comparison with the dismal day

A little blue boat seems a little far from the river today.

Around the next corner we come to a vineyard.

We walk through another forest and come to a bitumen road just after two picnic tables and several mounds of beer bottles. This can’t be right – we must have missed the signs, so we back-track and find ourselves overlooking a village with more troglodyte houses.

After a teabreak halfway down to the village, we start heading home. The sky brightens a little and then it starts spitting lightly.

We walk around the castle but there’s a fence to keep trespassers out of course.

We end our walk along the Cher. We can see a couple of people on the “beach” where we enjoyed a welcome ice-cream the summer before last after a hot ride along the river.

Our path back to the car takes us past the town hall, looking very festive. Joyeuses fêtes, it says, “Happy Holidays”. May I wish you all a happy Christmas as well!

Happy Holiday wishes at the town hall in Montrichard

French language

Friday’s French – Chantier, mess, roadworks, construction work

December 23, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 5 Comments

Chantier is an interesting word. The photo below is a perfect illustration of its three main meanings. Un chantier is a place where some sort of construction work is going on. It is also the construction work itself while the third meaning is related to the mess produced by the construction work.

The work being carried out here is for the installation of an automatic watering system - Le chantier en cours est l'installation d'un arrosage automatique — The work being carried out here is for the installation of an automatic watering system. What a mess! Le chantier en cours est l’installation d’un arrosage automatique. Et c’est un vrai chantier!

So what would we call a chantier in English? If it applies strictly to where the construction work is being carried out, then we can talk about a worksite or building site. That’s the most straightforward.

Il y a deux grues sur le chantier – There are two cranes on the building site.

If you’re talking about the place where you were doing a job, you’d probably say “on the job”.

J’ai oublié mes outils sur le chantier – I forgot my tools on the job.

When you’re talking about the construction work itself, you can no longer call it a worksite.

Ils ont démarré le chantier il y a deux semaines – They started construction two weeks ago.

By extension, the expression en chantier means that work of some sort is going on:

La maison est en chantier depuis trois mois – We’ve been fixing up the house / having the house fixed up / having alterations done on the house for three months.

J’en ai marre du chantier – I’m sick of alterations.

Elle a deux livres en chantier – She’s working on two books at the moment.

Quand est-ce que tu vas te mettre en chantier – When are you going to get going?

Chantier meaning a mess is not just restricted to construction work.

Ta chambre est un vrai chantier – Your room is a complete mess.

There are other specific uses of chantier such as chantier naval which is a shipyard and chantier d’exploitation forestière which is a lumber site.

There is also chantier interdit au public which literally means worksite prohibited to the public but in English we would probably just say “No entry” or “No admittance”.

Although roadworks are usually just travaux, when they are finished – when we would say “road clear” or “end of roadworks” -the French signs usually say “Fin de chantier”.

Chantier used in a wider sense means the start of a major project. A famous example is Chantiers de jeunesse, an organisation created in 1940 by the Vichy government to occupy newly drafted recruits. For more, very interesting reading on the subject, click here.

The origin of the word is also interesting and very complicated. It comes from the Latin cantherius meaning gelded horse or a poor work horse. By metaphor, it came to mean “support”, particularly (1261) the pieces of wood on which barrels were placed and by 1611, it also meant the wedge supporting a piece to be crafted, which gave the expression mentioned above mettre en chantier meaning to start work.

By the second half of the 17th century, chantier had come to mean a place where building materials were stocked and then an open-air construction or demolition site. The shipyard meaning comes from the fact that chantier was used to designate the wooden support used when boat-building.

I hope this explanation is comprehensible. My sources are a bit confusing and use lots of linguistics terminology.

Now, over to you – what other uses of chantier do you know?

Loire Valley, Walking

A Walk Along the Cisse to Coulanges

December 10, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 8 Comments

It’s Sunday and we are continuing our walk along the GR track starting at Chouzy-sur-Cisse, first to Coulanges where we have never been before, then to Chambon sur Cisse. The sun gradually comes out but it remains quite chilly. We walk about 10 km which is quite a lot for me.

Moss has taken over may of the roofs as winter approaches

The door looks as though it's some sort of religious building. It's only later on that we realise it's an abbey. — The door looks as though it’s some sort of religious building. It’s only later on that we realise it’s an abbey.

We don't know whether this pump was originally in this spot. — We don’t know whether this pump was originally in this spot.

The town hall in Coulanges, surprisingly large for such as small town.

There are no shops so the bread is delivered from Chouzy-sur-Cisse 4 kilometers away.

Many former openings are now bricked up.

it's hard to know where the roofs stops and the vegetation begins — it’s hard to know where the roofs stops and the vegetation begins

View of the bridge from the walking tracks along the Cisse

The pumpkin on the landing probably has something to do with Halloween

Looks like a great place to spend a summer day

Santa having a little rest before the hard work of Christmas

I'm always surprised to see palm trees so far north but it shows how mild the winter must be next to this part of the Cisse — I’m always surprised to see palm trees so far north but it shows how mild the winter must be next to this part of the Cisse

Food, French language

Friday’s French – pêche, nectarine, brugnon, peach

November 24, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 10 Comments

There is a popular belief in France that nectarines and their cousins, brugnons, are combinations of peaches and other fruits such as plums and apricots. Jean Michel was quite adamant before I was able to prove the contrary. He even flatly refused to accept the definition in the Larousse dictionary but he says that he has always been told that they were a hybrid.

The Larousse dictionary says that a nectarine is a peach with a smooth skin whose stone does not adhere to the flesh. A brugnon is a variety of peach with a smooth skin whose stone adheres to the flesh. My personal experience is that nectarines have a yellowish-orange flesh and are sweeter than brugnons whose flesh is pale and tastes a bit tart. I don’t actually like peaches because of their fuzzy skin but I can eat nectarines if there isn’t anything else.

The adherence/non adherence of the pit has given the terms “clingstone” and “freestone” in English.

It’s the wrong time of year to be able to use one of my own photos so I’m borrowing them from Wikipedia.

So where do the words pêche, peach, nectarine and brugnon come from?

Peach (and pêche) come from Old French pesche meaning “peach, peach tree” (Old North French peske), and directly from Medieval Latin pesca, from Late Latin pessica, a variant of persica “peach, peach tree,” from Latin malum Persicum, literally “Persian apple,” translating Greek Persikon malon, from Persis “Persia”.

In ancient Greek Persikos could mean “Persian” or “the peach.” The tree is native to China, but reached Europe via Persia. By 1663 William Penn observed peaches in cultivation on American plantations.

Its meaning in English of “attractive woman” is attested from 1754; that of “good person” from 1904. Peaches and cream in reference to a type of complexion is from 1901. Pêche in French does not have any of these meanings. The most common metaphorical meaning is avoir la pêche which means to be full of beans or in top form.

The word nectarine dates from the 1660s and means “of or like nectar”. It was probably inspired by German nektarpfirsich “nectar-peach.” It first appeared in English as nectrine before becoming nectarine.

Brugnon, on the other hand, is borrowed from the Occitan (southern French) prunhon from vulgar Latin “prunea” meaning plum. It first appeared in French as brignon (1600) then brugnon (1680). Maybe its origin partly explains the hybrid belief I mentioned earlier.

In the middle of the 19th century, brugnon was used for all smooth peaches and the stone-adhering/non-adhering was introduced later on.

Did you know about the brugnon/nectarine hybrid belief?

Food, French language, Uncategorized

Friday’s French – châtaigne, chestnut, marron, brun, brown

November 13, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 11 Comments

It’s roast chestnut season. If you come from Australia, you probably think there is only one kind – the edible sort you read about in English novels. Not so! In French, there are two different words: marron and châtaigne and the distinction is rather complicated.

There are basically two sorts: an edible sweet chestnut that is easiest to spot if it is still in its husk, which is spiny and needle-sharp. Its scientific name is Castanea sativa. It’s very distant relation, the toxic, inedible chestnut, also called the horse chestnut, has a husk that is much smoother, with only a few warts. Horse chestnuts are the ones commonly found in forests and backyards. Its scientific name is Aesculus hippocastanum.

So you would imagine it would be easy in French. Let’s start with the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). The tree is called a marronier d’Inde or marronier commun. It actually comes from the Balkans and has nothing to do with India. The fruit is also called a marron.

That’s the easy bit. Now we have the tree called châtaignier whose edible fruit is called une châtaigne. But people talk about eating marrons chauds and marrons glacés. Why? It’s because there are two kinds and the larger (and (tastier) cultivated châtaigne is called a marron!

The cultivated marron only contains one fruit in each husk whereas the wild ones have two or more, with an annoying skin called a pellicle between them. The ones in the photo as the wild ones. We had to discard half of them because they were too hard to eat. Next time we’ll make sure we buy marrons!

Marron is also the usual word for the colour brown.

Marron has, of course, given the colour maroon in English, which is not brown at all, but a dark brownish red colour, what the French call bordeaux. It you have ever seen a 20-year old bordeaux wine, you’ll understand where the colour comes from!

What about brun? I can hear you saying. Yes, you’re right, it also means brown. You say des cheveux bruns (brown hair), des yeux bruns (brown eyes), une peau brune (a swarthy skin), le tabac brun (dark tobacco), un ours brun (a brown bear) and bière brune (brown ale).

But brown shoes are chaussures marrons and a brown shirt is une chemise marron. Marron can also be used for eyes and hair. Some people argue that les yeux marrons and les yeux bruns are the same thing but others disagree. The same applies to les cheveux marrons and les cheveux bruns.

I’ve even heard les yeux noisette used to mean brown eyes, even though une noisette is a hazel nut. The problem with hazel eyes is that they are a mixture of green, brown and amber and the mix can vary according to the person, so two people can have hazel eyes that are very different.

What other examples can you think of? How do we say a brown dog in French? What about a brown horse and a brown coat? Or a brown car?

Art, Loire Valley, Walking

A Walk from Chambon to Molinleuf – 6 kilometers of surprises

November 7, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 14 Comments

It’s November 1^st, All Saints’ Day, which is a public holiday in France. It’s supposed to be sunny but the fog hasn’t lifted all morning. After lunch, it finally clears but it is only 11°C instead of the promised 14°C. I wonder sometimes at the lack of synchronization between the weather gods and the weather.

The first washhouse at Chambon sur Cisse

Jean Michel checks the map and suggests we walk along the GR tracks near Molineuf in the Cisse Valley so we can make the most of the autumn colours. GR means Grande Randonnée and corresponds to the long-distance hiking trails across France, http://www.gr-infos.com/gr-en.htm, indicated by red and white lines. We have a standing joke that if the path is muddy and uncomfortable, it’s a GR but it hasn’t been raining much recently so we should be OK.

The GR hiking sign — The GR hiking trail sign

We park our car in Chambon sur Cisse next to the GR. The first thing we see is a wash-house with a perfect picnic table next to it. We’ll have to remember it for another time.

We soon discover that our GR trail is also cycling itinerary n° 21. How come we’ve never seen it before? Locally we use the Châteaux à Vélo map and we don’t know any other itineraries so close to home. Very mysterious.

The red and white signs are not far behind and show us that we have to turn left. So far, so good.

The bitumen road takes us to Bury where we see a wall with a bread oven and a door. Looks like the perfect place to celebrate bread-baking day! Jean Michel says it’s of recent construction but I don’t mind. I think it looks very inviting.

The second washhouse in Bury — The second washhouse on the Cisse in Bury

A little further on is a second wash-house with some little steps leading down on one side to the water.

On the right we see what looks like the remains of a fortified wall and that’s exactly what it is – the remains of an 11^th century wall around the feudal castle of Bury, restored by the local Lions Club, the municipality and a local construction firm.

A little further on we see a carpet of wild cyclamens.

There is a fork in the road and no indication of which one the GR takes so we choose the left, following a sign that says Saint Secondin, 12^th century, and takes us past a locksmith with a giant key on the wall.

The church hoves into sight on a rise overlooking a little valley.

Since it’s 1^st November, there are quite a few people putting the traditional chrysanthemums on family graves in anticipation of All Souls’ Day (2^nd November). Twenty million pots are sold every year. The tradition, which replaced that of lighting candles, which symbolize life after death, dates back to 1919 when France was celebrating the first anniversary of the armistice of World War I on November 11^th. President Poincaré wanted flowers put on all the tombs of France and one of the rare flowers that comes into bloom at that time of the year is the chrysanthemum. The tomb-flowering date gradually shifted from 11^th to 2^nd November.

Over to the right, in the middle of a field I see a most surprising thing – a giant flower pot containing a large tree. A quick search of the Internet when I get home does not give me any clue about its existence.

A little further on, we come across an unusual sign that says “Private parking lot of the D’Aymons – to be used only to visit them”. The D’Aymons turn out to be a group of wooden sculptures in Indian file. A charter explains how to become a member of the D’Aymons “class-less” society where time is the only currency.

The third washhouse in Molineuf — The third washhouse on the Cisse in Molineuf

We arrive in Molineuf, which is a contraction of Moulin Neuf (new mill) and see our third washhouse on the Cisse.

We turn left past the aptly named Hôtel du Pont, which is closed but looks most inviting with its terrace on the Cisse.

A little further is a stunning holly bush. I’ve never seen one so full of red berries. I’m going to check out a few gardening videos to see how I can increase the production on my own bush!

We choose a bench in front of the local Town Hall for our tea and biscuits and discuss which route we’ll take to go home.

After retracing our steps, we turn left so that we are walking downhill from the church of Saint Secondin and have an excellent view of the potted tree.

The silent tractor with the potted tree on the right

Jean Michel is very pleased because he will at last be able to see the brand of a tractor he has been watching out of the corner of his eye. It is remarkably quiet, he tells me. It’s a German Fendt.

We arrive back in Bury and Jean Michel takes a closer look at the modern sculpture of a horse made by a local community called “Le Foyer Amical”.

Further left we see a massive thicket of bamboo. I didn’t know they could grow so high.

We walk back to the car having covered a total of six kilometers. I can’t believe that we can have seen so many unusual things in a such a short space of time in a tiny country area!

This post is a contribution to Lou Messugo’s All About France blog link-up. For other contributions, click here.

French language

Friday’s French – horloge, pendule, clock, réveil, watch, montre

November 3, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 9 Comments

We get up on Sunday morning after going back onto winter time and all the clocks are an hour out. “Il faut remettre les pendules à l’heure, c’est le cas de le dire”. “Resetting the clocks” is an expression in French which means to put the record straight or put things in their right place.

The town hall in Villiers-sur-Loir with its 2-metre diameter monumental clock — L’horloge de la mairie à Villiers-sur-Loir

Ce garçon devient impossible. Son succès lui monte à la tête. Il faudra remettre les pendules à l’heure. – That boy is getting impossible. Success has gone to his head. He needs to be brought down a peg.

Ce débat devient stérile. Il faut remettre les pendules à l’heure. – This discussion is getting out of hand. We need to get back on track.

So where does the French expression come from? Well, you know all those war and spy films where the characters all synchronise their watches so that their mission will be a success? That’s all it is!

Talking about pendules, the French have several different words for time-pieces: horloge, pendule, réveil, montre come to mind.

Horloge is used when it’s a big clock: l’horloge de la gare (station clock), horloge de l’église (church clock), horloge normande or de parquet or comtoise (grandfather clock), horloge astronomique (astronomical clock), etc.

Le buffet à horloge qui en fait est une pendule !

Pendule obviously corresponds to pendulum so is used for a pendulum clock and a cuckoo clock (pendule à coucou), for instance, but can also be used for any clock (except an alarm clock) as in remettre les pendules à l’heure. But when the pendule is in a grandfather clock, it’s becomes horloge!

An alarm clock is always called a réveil or réveil-matin (a morning wake-up clock). Il faut mettre le réveil à 8 heures – you’ll have to set the alarm for 8 (o’clock). A travel alarm clock is a réveil de voyage.

Watch and montre indicate the same object with a few variations according to type. A wrist watch is a montre-bracelet, a fob watch is montre de gousset (which gave our word gusset), a watch with a winder is a montre à remontoir and a diver’s watch is a montre de plongée. The others are vitually the same: montre analogue/digital/numérique/de précision/à quartz/à répétition = analog/digital/precision/quartz/repeating.

There are all sorts of expressions that revolve around the word clock that are sometimes rendered by montre in French and sometimes by horloge or heure or something else again!

A race against the clock = une course contre la montre

To keep your eyes on the clock = surveiller l’heure

To work around the clock = travailler vingt-quatre heures d’affilée

To do something by the clock = faire quelquechose en respectant l’horaire

To turn the clock back = revenir en arrière

I’m sure you have lots of other examples of time-related expressions to share!

Blogging, Books, Country living, Cycling, French language, Life in France, Loire Valley

Five Years of Blogging

October 30, 2016 Rosemary Kneipp 20 Comments

I missed my 5th anniversary of blogging! My first post was published on 11th October 2011 just before my son went to live in Australia. He helped me set it up and regularly comes to the rescue when I have a problem. He also hosts me. I started my second blog, Blois Daily Photo (now Loire Daily Photo) in July 2013 in anticipation of moving to Blois. When I first started blogging, I posted nearly every day. I had a lot to say!

I then started posting every second day with regular features such as Monday’s Photo of the Week and Wednesday’s Blogger Round-Up where I featured 3 posts I had read during the week that I wanted to share. These days I don’t seem to have time to read many other blogs at all.

In fact, since we moved to Blois two years ago, I seem to have little time and energy to do much blogging apart from Loire Daily Photo. I still occasionally write a Friday’s French post (two this month!) and am currently trying to write a series on Secret Blois (two so far – it seems to be my magic number). During our cycling holidays, however, I have more inspiration and time and usually manage to give a fairly full report.

Two contrasting skyscrapers - the new One World Trade Center and one of the "wedding cake" skyscrapers from the 1930s — Two contrasting skyscrapers – the new One World Trade Center and one of the “wedding cake” skyscrapers from the 1930s

I would like to write more about our trip to New York and to Boston in September to see my son and daughter but after a full day’s translation I don’t seem to have much energy left!

My basic interests remain the same but have taken on different dimensions. Reading is still my favourite activity but not something I blog about very often. I like to read ALL the works of a given author plus a couple of biographies and my Kindle usually makes that possible. I am currently working my way through the Victorian novels and am now onto the lessor known writers such as Wilkie Collins and Elisabeth Gaskell.

Travelling is at the top of the list too and we’ve certainly done a lot this year – a total of twelve weeks in Australia, the Golden Triangle in India including the Taj Mahal, cycling in Italy and Germany, especially along the Romantic Road, and New York & Boston, not to mention a few short trips. And, believe it or not, I have nothing else in the pipeline at the moment, for the first time that I can remember! I need a break from holidays. And we are up to 13 home exchanges in 4 years which isn’t bad going.

Next comes cycling but unfortunately it stops from about mid-October until March. Mushroom picking usually takes over but there has been so little rain this year but there are no mushrooms. We’re hoping that next week’s expected Indian summer will have them popping up all over the place.

I love gardening but I have discovered it is almost as humbling as being a parent – so much to learn and those plants have a mind of their own! One year the petunias run riot and the next year they get leggy. The clematis that bloomed beautifully one summer sulk the next. Fortunately we seem to have mastered the wisteria, the roses, the hollyhocks and the raspberries which is more than we can say for the bignomias and the lettuces!

We still enjoy wine-tasting but have a tendency to stick to our favourites, particularly the local Loire Valley wines and our favourite chianti, especially in front of the fireplace!

Homemade foie gras and vouvray to see the New Year in before the fire

I love taking photographs with my iPhone 5S because it’s a great way to remember places and people and makes me look at things in a different way. I wouldn’t call it a hobby though because I know nothing about lenses and photographic techniques and I usually just take photos because something catches my eye. My iPhone isn’t very good at night or when there isn’t much light but the rest of the time, it’s perfect for my purposes.

But back to blogging. My most popular post remains “The Best Area to Stay in Paris” with about 3,000 clicks a month. Next, a long way behind, are “Friday’s French – biche, chevreuil & deer“, “Ten Top Châteaux in the Loire“, “The Oldest House in Paris” and “Visit the Loire without a Car Based in Blois“.

Chenonceau, undoubtedly the most beautiful of all the châteaux

Over one quarter of my readers live in Australia, followed by France and the US, each about 1/5, then the UK, Canada, Singapore, Germany, India, Italy and Malaysia. The last 1/5 is made of up a surprising 90 countries which means that people from about 100 countries read Aussie in France.

The thing I like best about blogging are the wonderful friends I’ve made among my readers, people whom I would never have been in contact with otherwise. Some comment regularly, others from time to time, while some write to me personally. Others have become close friends. I love to feel connected in such a unique way. So I think I shall keep blogging for a few more years yet …

from the Tropics to the City of Light