The first knitting retreat

The guests have just all departed from our first knitting retreat here at La Verderie. We have had a fantastic few days with three lovely people. Mark and Diane came all the way from Canada to visit Paris and our little corner of rural France. Whilst Diane was happy to launch into her knitting as soon as she arrived, Mark was a little worried that he had been talked into spending five days with three slightly nutty knitters. However Culli came to his rescue and whisked him off around the countryside to sample a little of the local cognac, check out the bar at St Meme, assist on a few site visits and even grovel around in the engine of the boat - what a lucky man!

The lovely Michelle from Devon kept us entertained with her stories and came up with some great ideas for my book - thank you Michelle! She is a knitter with the patience of a saint, producing her own designs for beautiful floaty garments in laceweight yarns, just stopping every so often to pop outside for a quick fag.

We managed to consume breakfast, lunch and a four course dinner every day with ease, washed down with lashings of wine. It was great to have three real foodies with no dislikes, the seafood lunch on Saturday was attacked with relish, oysters, prawns and bulot enjoyed by all. I try to make the menus a mix of french and english so came up with the following for the evening meals -
Thursday - smoked salmon pate, Normandy chicken, cheese board, peaches baked in pineau
Friday - pear, roquefort and walnut salad, salmon and prawn pie, cheese board, tarte tatin
Saturday - pumpkin soup, magret de canard with red wine sauce, cheese board, squidgy lemon pudding
Sunday - charentais melon with pineau, roast lamb with dauphinoise potatoes, cheese board, mousse au chocolat
Monday - prawns with ginger and chilli, boeuf bourguignon, cheese board, croissant bread pudding
We had an outing to the market at St Jean d'Angely on Saturday morning and I took Mark and Diane into Saintes yesterday afternoon for a wander around the shops and a visit to the Roman Amphitheatre.

It was sad to see them all leave today, Mark and Diane are back to Paris for a few more days of culture and Michelle is off for a week's adventure in La Rochelle. Tomorrow the house sitters move in and Culli and I are off to the UK for a wedding, Monday the diet starts..............

Autumn Sailing

Maet at Boyardville

Time to catch up with my sadly neglected blog.....
Culli and I and our sailing mate Mike spent the first two weeks of September sailing our little yacht up the coast from Royan to Ile de Re, not a particularly adventurous holiday as we were never much more than 50 miles from the coast, but it was a much needed break. Not a break from knitting though, I have some nerve-racking deadlines for my new book so spent at least 4 hours every day working on projects for this. There is something very peaceful about working on a boat, with a stash of knitting yarn in the fore peak and the laptop set up on the saloon table, I decided I could probably work like this for weeks on end.

tourist boat at St Denis

Our first stop was the marina at St Denis on Ile d'Oleron, this is one of our favourite marinas and a short walk up to the town takes you to the best Thai restaurant in France. Shopping at the daily market is a pleasure with loads of fresh fish and seafood, freshly cooked paella, luscious fruit and veg and cheesy fougeres from the boulangerie.

cycling on ile d'Oleron

Next stop was Boyardville, a small marina accessed through a lock two hours each side of high water and deep joy there was a brocante at the end of the marina on the sunday morning! We hired bicycles and cycled into the town of St Pierre for a wander around the shops and a coffee. Oleron is fantastic for cycling as it is totally flat with cycle paths taking you all round the island.

stormy sky

From Boyardville we sailed to St Martin on Ile de Re, a great sail with a good wind all the way taking us to the little port in the centre of St Martin, a great people watching place. We spent a couple of nights in St Martin with a howling gale and thunderstorm passing through on the second day, the only bad weather we experienced and were glad to be snugged up in the sheltered port.

Culli and Mike in St Martin

Next visit was an overnight stop at La Rochelle, sadly Le Vieux port was full so we had to go into the modern marina at Les Minimes, and because the boat show was due to start in a few days time had a whole pontoon to ourselves. Mike had to get back to the UK, so jumped ship at La Rochelle and Culli and I sailed back to St Denis for the final weekend.

abandoned boat

We met some lovely people, David and Sarah on their 38 foot Catamaran, who were sailing down the coast of France to Spain with their two cats and Tom and Danny who were also heading South on their beautiful dutch boat. We rescued a yacht that had been abandoned at low tide, saving it from crashing into the catamaran on the fierce current that whooshes into the marina as the tide comes in, the grateful owner treated us all to beers in the evening.

Chassiron lighthouse

We hired bikes for the day and cycled up the impressive lighthouse at Chassiron and walked around the headland, then stopped for a picnic lunch on a bench overlooking the deserted beach.

dodging the tide

The trip back to Royan was fairly eventful, with not much wind we had to motor some of the way. Just before the entrance to the Gironde estuary Culli noticed that the automatic bilge pump had kicked in. We opened the engine cover and discovered water pouring out of the engine, when he didn't reply to my question 'are we going to sink?' I knew things were bad......... My first thought was, how am I going to get all my knitting projects to dry land. However, a wine bottle cork saved the day, stuffed in the hole in the engine and held on with self amalgamating tape, we turned the engine off and resigned ourselves to a long sail home, but happily the wind picked up and we finally made it!

oyster shells

August 31st

It feels like summer is coming to an end. The weather today has been wonderful, a clear blue sky with a day time temperature of 28c, but when I went for my morning walk with the dogs it was a very autumnal 9c. Gill and Merv our part-time neighbours head back to the UK tomorrow and Culli, our sailing friend Mike and I are off for a late summer holiday on our little boat leaving my cousin Moira and her mates to dog and house sit. The grapes and tomatoes are falling on the ground so my last job before I go on holiday is yet more spicy tomato chutney, grape jelly and grape vodka..... (not totally convinced about that one, but watch this space). We get back in time for the first of the autumn workshops at Kangaroo, the first knitting retreat here at La Verderie, bramble jelly, sloe gin and very probably green tomato chutney.

Debbie Bliss magazine issue 5

New for autumn 2010, the fall/winter issue Debbie Bliss magazine no. 5 is due in stock mid september and is packed with gorgeous designs. Pre-order your copy here.

Debbie Bliss Andes

We have just had a delivery of the new Debbie Bliss yarn Andes. This gorgeous yarn is a luxurious blend of 65% baby alpaca and 35% mulberry silk with supporting patterns in the Andes book. Check out the patterns and order the yarn and pattern book at the same time for free postage!

Hand Maiden knitting kits

We have three new kits available in the gorgeous hand-dyed yarns from Canadian spinners Hand Maiden. The Criss Cross scarf is knitted in Camelspin and the Sea Lace and Chrysanthemum scarves are both crochet. Follow the links to see the designs and place an order.

Bed and Breakfast in France and Arts and Crafts in Crazanne

A few people have asked what has happened to the blog recently.....? well, I have been busy, busy, busy. We have finally finished decorating the final part of the house for the chambres d'hotes, see the new website http://www.accommodationcharente-maritime.com/ and have had guests! I also have two new knitting books in the pipeline, samples have just gone off for the first, so fingers crossed that sells and I have signed the contract for the second one - yikes! Now I have all sorts of scary deadlines to meet.

On Sundy I was invited to take part in the annual arts and crafts event at Crazanne, a pretty little village about half an hour away from us. Various artists and craft workers set up in gardens around the village to promote their craft, I was in our friends' Dick and Jackie's barn which was a great spot for an exhibition. The night before and all morning we had the most horrendous thunderstorms, so was glad to be under cover, however the sun did come out for the afternoon. It wasn't as busy as it could have been, but we had fun, I handed out leaflets and talked a few people into coming along to one of my knitting groups. My neighbour in the barn, Hazel was showing her beautiful ceramics and gave us all a hands on chance with some clay - since a brief fling with pottery at college I have always fancied going back to it, sadly not enough hours in the day at the moment...!