A little holiday in the Charente-Maritime

I had a lovely few days at the end of October with my old college mates Lesley, Bar and Mandy visiting La Verderie. The sun shone and we managed to sit outside for a few hours nearly every day.

lunch in St Jean d'Angely

Burie

Burie

the lovely coffee shop in Saintes

We started the weekend with a lovely lunch of moules frites in St Jean d'Angely on thursday, a coffee and a wander around Burie on Friday and plenty of retail therapy in Saintes at the weekend.

Puck, our visiting French bulldog discovered that Lesley was a soft touch and finally made it up on to the sofa, after being turfed off by Culli she resorted to sitting on top of BeBop for a bit of warmth and comfort.

A sunny Easter at La Verderie

Spring is slow arriving even in sunny France, however we have had a lovely Easter weekend with some warm sunshine and visitors.

My Easter bouquet

Our friends Mike and Linda and Nash and Linda arrived for the weekend clutching, gorgeous flowers, simnel cake, delicious starters and sparkling wine from the Loire. Mike and Linda live in Arcais in the Marais Poitevin, a lovely part of France just a little way North West of here which we rudely refer to as swamp land, but is actually a beautiful area of marshes criss-crossed with small rivers canals and woodland, best explored by flat-bottomed boats called barques. Nash and Linda are the owners of our much loved workshop venue for the past 5 years, Chateau St Julien, they spend part of the year in the US, so it is good to be able to pin them down for a weekend.

Mike and Linda enjoying some sunshine

We spent the afternoon sitting in the sunshine eating Linda's delicious simnel cake and catching up on all the news followed by a gentle stroll around the lanes with BeBop. In the evening a huge feast with champagne and yummy starters provided by Linda, home made tapenade, garlicky bean dip, scallop ceviche, fresh prawns and goats cheese, followed by my favourite dinner party recipe - leg of lamb marinated in yoghurt and spices with dauphinoise potatoes, spinach and tomatoes, a cheese course then almond and orange gateau with caramelised oranges and just a couple of Easter eggs from Culli's most recently turned bowl....................

Easter eggs in a Culli bowl

On Monday morning Nash, the two Linda's and I went to the brocante in Crazanne. There were plenty of stalls with some lovely things but being early in the season the prices are high, I found a lovely haberdashery stall and bought some buttons and a basket and we all hit the plant stall, so I now have 10 strawberry plants for my new planter.

The plant stall at Crazanne brocante

We got back home to discover that Mike and Culli had been busy designing a hand-turned wooden chess set, Mike full of enthusiasm to build a website in Russian to sell the chess sets! We had a lovely, leisurely lunch of left overs in the warm sunnshine, then everyone departed leaving us to have a quick snooze in the sun.

October knitting retreat at La Verderie

The second day of the retreat and everyone is relaxing into knitting, talking, eating and drinking. Sandra, Sue and I start the day walking the dogs. The grape harvest is in full swing at the moment so the air is ripe with the intoxicating smell of grape skins, we wander up the lane through the woods and collect a bowl full of walnuts on the way home, battling to get to them before the dogs scoff the lot.
After a morning of knitting, Sandra finally finishes her mini stocking with the intarsia Father Christmas, I manage at least another 10 rows of Culli's jumper and Rosemary stops unravelling her project. We head off for Saintes after lunch and dodge the rain showers taking shelter in Maison du Monde and the yarn shop, then drive up to the top of town for a view of the impressive Roman amphitheatre.

Culli, Rosemary, Sandra, Sue and I go for a visit to Egreteau our local Cognac producer. It is not the best time for them as they are really busy with the harvest, but are as welcoming as usual and Madame takes us for a tour of the distillery with generous tastings of pineau and cognac, we all buy of a bottle of VSOP and merrily head home for more wine. Rosemary's quote for the day 'I don't drink much, just almost every day'!

Neighbour Gill joins us for supper of melon with parma ham, paella and tart tatin, then we watch the Choir and manage a bit more knitting. During 'mock the week', there is a loud exclamation of 'two fingers' from Sue, we think she is referring to the progress on her knitted gloves and not what was being discussed on the telly............... I finally get to bed some time after midnight.