Open studio

Our Easter Exhibition at La Verderie was a gentle start to the season with not exactly hoards of visitors but a steady flow.

John's beautifully renovated clocks were a great success, the bells, chimes and cuckoos echoed around the barn and garden all weekend. Judith sold loads of her lovely greetings cards and I did well on tea and cakes, having just discovered that with my new cooker I can finally cook scones!
We ended the weekend with curry for 16 of us on Sunday evening in the garden.

Knitting holidays in France - spaces still available

Enjoy an early Spring in the Charente-Maritime we still have a few spaces available on the following three knitting and crochet holidays -

Thursday 20th March - tuesday 25th March 2014 - knitting and crochet holiday with optional workshops on various knitting techniques and basic crochet. For further details click here.

Thursday 27th March - tuesday 1st April 2014 - knitting and crochet holiday with optional workshops on various knitting techniques and basic crochet. For further details click here.

Thursday 24th April - tuesday 29th April 2014 - knitting and crochet holiday with optional workshops on various knitting techniques and basic crochet. For further details click here.

Come on your own to enjoy the company of fellow knitters or bring along a partner or friend (we can also arrange woodturning or painting classes on the same holiday if wanted). The holidays are open to all skill levels.

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.

Open Studio and workshops in France

Chambord

We have just come back from a hectic few days in the UK. The return trip was very long with a detour to see some puppies (which was a wasted journey), then a lovely drive back down the Loire past some of the beautiful Chateaux, through a massive thunderstorm at Poitiers which nearly brought the traffic to a halt. We came back with a car loaded full of Kilims for the gallery (if they make it that far!)

Kilims for sale

I now have a month to tidy, re-arrange and make stuff to fill the gallery in time for the two day Open Studio at La Verderie in August (Sunday 18th and Sunday 25th August). There will also be paintings by local artist's Pamela Slater and Doris Murray, woodturning by Roger Slater and Culli and woodturning demo's. For further details visit the Art in France website here.

Stag in the sunflowers

The sunflowers are finally out and looking very beautiful, BeBop and I have been going for very early morning walks and came across a stag in the sunflowers this morning, sadly too far away for a good image!

Bix's Birthday

Bix the dog was 11 yesterday, which according the chart in our vets means he is 105 in dog years as large dogs age quicker than the standard 7 years to 1 of ours. Anyway he looks pretty good for it and had a good long walk through the woods with his dog club mates.

I managed to get the final samples for my latest book in the post on Monday, which was deadline day. It is so lovely to be able to relax a bit for the first time in the last 7 months. I am now on a major blitz on the house and sorting out the stock for Kangaroo. We have had b&b guests for two nights this week, which was great, hopefully with the lovely weather and Easter approaching there will be more bookings soon.

The move

I finally seem to be surfacing from the mountain of packing boxes, my office still looks like a tornado has gone through it but things are improving. Kangaroo is temporarily set up in a bedroom at La Verderie, where it will have to stay until we get the work to the chai and the barn finished (which could be some time!) I have signed the contract for another book with a deadline of early April so the pressure is on again.

The move was even more stressful than moving house, with the added complication of keeping the computers running, finding stock in the mass of collapsible boxes and black bin liners, sending out orders and trying to keep all the customers happy. On top of all this I have to complete half year accounts for the UK, complete my registrations in France, decide on the best postage options, re-price and change loads of things on the website, design some new kits for KnitKits and then there is the garden.......

My poor little courtyard has been totally neglected for the last 6 months, so am trying to spend a little time every day out there. The weather is fantastic at the moment, still cold at night with a frost but up to 23 degrees in the daytime.

The crochet workshop here in October with Jane Crowfoot is now fully booked, which is really exciting. I am emailing tutors this week to arrange some more dates for 2012, so watch this space! We have had a few chambres d'hotes enquiries and  http://www.accommodationcharente-maritime.com/ is starting to get more hits which is good news.

Arts and Crafts

Pumpkins in the frost

I'm back blogging! October seemed to pass me by, I have missed two end of month photos for September and October and have a lot of catching up to do. My life is a little chaotic at the moment, we seem to have had a month of disasters. However, I am settling into commuting from France to Sussex every week, I miss Culli and the dogs and the gentle pace of life in France desperately, however it is great to be involved in the day to day running of Kangaroo and meeting up with old customers.
I have just had an Arts and Crafts Exhibition at home in France over the weekend, the combination of paintings and textiles (and delicious cream teas in aid of the Poppy appeal!) brought visitors in from all over the Charente-Maritime. It has fired my enthusiasm to open a gallery in our barn and have had Culli drawing up designs for the conversion all weekend!
November is going to be just as hectic, I have finally had the designs for my book approved so now have three weeks to make up all the designs and write the text..........
I also have to get a few tea cosies together for my old friend Kim's Open House in Brighton. If you are in the Brighton area this exhibition is well worth a visit, details will be on the one2six website soon. The exhibition will be open on 20th, 21st and 27th, 28th November and 4th, 5th and 11th, 12th December, a one stop visit for all your Christmas shopping and some scrummy cakes.

Photography Club

Yesterday was the annual outing for our photography club, a morning in Port d'Envaux with our cameras and four subjects (Stone, Guess What, Messing around on the river and Man Made) followed by lunch.

Port d'Envaux is a sleepy little town on the river Charente, Culli and I have been there a number of times in the past (when we were house-hunting we used to go down to the picnic site at the river in the evening and go through all the houses we had seen that day over a large g&t), but I discovered lots of things I didn't know about the place.

There is an amazing quarry called Les Lapidiales where sculptors from all over the world have created wonderful carvings in the wall, a perfect venue for the photography topic of Stone and like most sites in France completely unfenced with free entrance. The river was as beautiful as ever, very quiet and peaceful with just a few French families at the purpose built picnic site, the joy of being away from the coast at this time of year in France. There is also now a dedicated swimming area with diving platform, another venue for Noizefest guests next year!

Lunch in one of the local restaurants was excellent, smoked salmon roulade, duck in cherry sauce and ice cream and meringue washed down with lashings of rose, another good day for the diet......

Bed & Breakfast in the Charente-maritime

The chicks have flown the nest

The little Redstart family have gone out into the big wide world, they were all out of the nest yesterday morning and by the afternoon were launching themselves off the beams in the barn, no sign of them today so hopefully the five of them have survived.

The sunflowers are out

It feels like summer is finally here to stay, the sunflowers have just started flowering and it has been blissfully hot for days, I am decorating the final guest room (not the best thing to be doing in this heat, but it has to be finished). The cherry glut is almost over and has been replaced with courgettes. Try this yummy recipe for courgette burgers, even Culli who is a dedicated carnivore raved about them -
Grate a courgette and squeeze out all the liquid, mix with a handful of breadcrumbs, a finely chopped onion, chilli and some fresh basil, 1 beaten egg, a squidge of tomato puree and a dollop of mustard. Season well and shape into four burgers, fry for about 5 - 10 minutes turning once. Serve in buns with chilli relish and cornichons, mayo and tomatoes - fab!
Looks like I may have another catering job for a wedding in September, fingers crossed.

Bed and Breakfast for the Cognac Blues Festival 2010

Cognac Blues Passion is approaching fast, the festival runs from 27th July to 1st August this year and provides five days worth of exceptional music, much of it for free. We are taking bookings for the B&B now, situated just 16 km from Cognac the peacefulness of La Verderie is a sharp contrast to the bustle of the town, relax over a leisurely breakfast and alfresco lunch then take advantage of our free taxi service to Cognac for non-stop entertainment. Some of the headliners this year are Gil Scott Heron, Seal, Joe Louis Walker and Barbara Hendricks, with over 20 bands playing around the town every day you are spoilt for choice.

Brocantes

Yesterday was the brocante at Nere and my friend Barbara and I had a stall to sell off some of our (and a few other people's) old junk. The day started off with a thunderstorm right overhead and torrential rain, fortunately we were next to the bar so took shelter there. Large coffees, bacon butties and dancing to a clockwork gorilla singing 'hot, hot, hot' kept us entertained for the morning. The rain finally eased off, but too late for me to find any bargains on the other stalls, the dealers had already snapped up the goodies and unusually not a ball of yarn in sight. It stayed damp and cloudy for most of the morning but by the afternoon the sun was out, the Rose wine was flowing and the junk disappearing fast. Brocantes are great people watching places, it was an entertaining day but certainly from the selling point of view I think once was enough.

Dog walking Club

Every thursday a group of us meet for a dog walk, it is good for Bix and BeBop as they don't get to socialise much and it means we go on different walks as each of the humans take it in turns to host the walk. After an hour of not too brisk walking we stuff our faces with delicious home-made cakes and cups of tea and coffee. Yesterday it was my turn to host, we had 11 walkers and 9 dogs, chocolate brownies, meringues, chocolate rice crispies and some rather weird experimental carrot cakes (will have to work on this one!)
Back to DIY in the afternoon, I have almost finished painting the upstairs bathroom, final coat today. Not much time for knitting at the moment, but I must get the yarn review finished today.......!

The last day of May

Aaargh! I forgot to take the last day of the month photograph. May was a mix of sunshine, freezing cold weather, rain, thunderstorms and lots of wind. The 31st was cold, grey and windy in the Charente-Maritime, but the forecast promises better weather for later in the week.

And it looks like it is starting today, so we'll go for a 2nd of June photo, the sun is out with just a few clouds in the sky and a gentle breeze, please can this be summer coming? The lavender is starting to come out and the garden is full of bees.

Day 4 at the knitting workshop

A bit of a grey day outside and very quiet inside I managed to stagger out of bed to lay up breakfast by 8 and so far only Tracey has appeared. Last night was fairly noisy, the noise levels in the dining room go up every day. Wendy was entertaining everyone with tales of her foreign lodgers.....
The keener members of the group were upstairs knitting frantically. Today is just a morning workshop with a free afternoon. We are taking a few into Poitiers to hit the yarn shop, whilst Culli and I go to the supermarket again. I have ordered a whole salmon which I need to poach for tonight - a practice run as I am catering for a wedding in June and it worked! Here is Culli skinning it ready to be served with herb mayo, new potatoes and fresh green beans.

The sun came out in time for kirs on the terrace and for Nash to give his talk on the history of the chateau. The oldest part of the chateau was built in the 12th century, the medieval tower has a spiral staircase that goes from the kitchen to the top floor with concealed doorways on each level. Culli and I are in the haunted bedroom on the second floor, but have not had any ghostly visitors yet! To read more about the history of Chateau St Julien l'Ars visit their website.

The knitting projects are coming along well with some lovely original designs, see some of the photos on Heike's blog here. I have decided to knit a post workshop project, there are some lovely ornamental poppies in the grounds, perhaps a bag or a jumper for my grand-daughter Poppy.

Bed and Breakfast, Charente-Maritime, France

At last the b&b is up and running!

The double bedroom with ensuite shower on the ground floor is ready to let and we have had our first paying guest this week. Bookings can be made on-line at Kangaroo but please email sue@kangaroo.uk.com first to check availability or call us on +33 (0)5 46 94 08 53.

Situated between St Jean d'Angely, Cognac and Saintes we are the perfect stopping off point if you are heading South, just 17 kms off the A10. Or come and relax in a peaceful rural setting for a few days and explore the surrounding countryside by bicycle or on foot. Evening meals can be provided on request and we are dog friendly so well behaved four legged friends are very welcome.