A few favourite photos

Hi there

I finally got around to downloading my iphone photos and here are some of the favourites.

Here is Sophie standing above Rocamodour.  As you can see it looks amazing and it's only about half an hour away from here. Apparently, going back a few hundred years it was the most visited holy place in Europe behind Rome!

Here we are having a little picnic next to the Lot River one day on our way to Cahors. That's an old water mill you can see behind us.

This was on our first visit to Sarlat,....... Sophie has a real knack for striking a pose hey.

This was a week or so after we arrived, and one of our first outings to a French restaurant, still buzzing from the reality of actually being here, or was it the beer!

This was only a few metres from that same restuarant. It's a doggy do do pit. As you probably know dogs are treated very well over here. Like you can go to a restaurant and have your dog lie next to your table and that's all fine.

Our local village, Payrac,  is pretty small, say a thousand people, but this grande building shown below is what they call the Hotel de Ville or Marie. It's like a town hall. It's where all the admin for the town gets done and where we for example acquired Sophie's meal tickets for her preschool. I was just really impressed by the look of this building considering how small Payrac is.

And here we are at "Moules and Frites" or in English "mussels and chips", an annual get together for the area around our hamlet. There was one other English speaking person there,  a pom who had a French girlfriend in the village, nice guy, he still couldn't speak French, and that was after living in France for a few years. His girlfriend and he speak English at home, I'd say because she wanted to improve her English. You get that a bit here, which isn't good for our French language progression! There is Sophie in the foreground. Great afternoon.

No photo here, but a note I made last Monday... Sabina the owner, with her husband, of La Vallee, also drives the local school bus. And this morning after attaining the necessary paperwork she was able to catch the bus to school for the first time. It was a very average day, so we thought no she can catch it another day, but no she really wanted to catch the bus. We just made it. I drove her down to the pickup point, Sabina minutes later rolls up. With no hesitation she jumps on. You should have seen the eyes light up, and the big smile appear, on the little boy she sat next too. That was gold, it's those sorts of memories I will cherish. I'd say Sophie definitely has some fans at preschool. 

A bientot et bonne santé
Jane, Sophie, Connor and me.

 

It has not been this cold since 1887!

We had another great day today. Well it started off pretty average, a lot of rain, freezing temperatures, and shopping in Brive - shopping in France in most cases is way down the priority list for me. On the way back though we visited two absolutely beautiful villages, Turenne and Collonges-la-Rouge, and the sun came out.

Just on that 1887 record, we popped into a shop in Turenne and happened to see the front page of a paper, as shown below. Via "google translate" it reads:

"Record cold beaten,
This time we spoil life,
It had not been this cold since.... 1887
The French as they can adapt."

I'm sure they have dramatized the situation, but it does bring home just how cold it is. They would of course be talking about the temperatures at this time of the year.   

The two photos below are of Turenne. The first shows the remains of the Turenne castle in the background. Starting way back in the 10th century the lords of Turenne won their independence from the kings of France. They printed their own money, etc, and it wasn't until 1738 that Louis XIV bought the region off the reigning lord of Turenne.

How's this for an impressive tower at one end of the castle:

Below are some photos of Collonges-la-Rouge. The whole town is red! Mum, when you come over I'm definitely taking you here, you'll love it. The rock used to build this medieval town has a certain rusty ingredient in it, hence the colour. It was a stopover for pilgrims on their way to Compostela, Spain, a reasonable 1,200kms away, a descent walk. It also has a great Pizza restaurant where we had dinner.

Below is a picture I took out the kitchen window couple of days ago - we're seeing a lot of that type of sky. The word is, come June it will be sunny skies and temperatures in the 20's. I'll believe it when I see it. All the French around here must have pools for some reason!

Au revoir!

Gee it's cold!

Bonjour all, hope you are well.

Gee it's been cold. Our British neighbours were telling us the weather in France has been making the news in England! The farmers are unhappy because it's so unseasonal and they're supposed to be making hay while the sun shines at this time of the year. I was driving Sophie to school earlier this week and it was 8 degrees, and that's at nine o'clock in the morning. I don't think it moved above 12 degrees all day on Tuesday. But hey, we're still having fun, and I'm sure this sunny weather that the locals keep talking about is just around the corner.
 

A highlight over the last week was Saturday night, when we had three of the neighbours, Beth, Tony, and Denis and Zac, Mia, and baby Loui, our first visitors, for dinner . And I cooked duck! Below is a photo of us and the served up duck. After the meal we received a clap from all, totally chuffed, and relieved that Jane and I were able to pull it off. We were a bit nervous about cooking French cuisine for expats that have been here for close to 20 years. 

 

 



 

We have had some beautiful sunny days too. Here we are with Zac, Mia, and Loui, at a beautiful restaurant on the outskirts of a little river town. The setting was fantastic as you can see, and it looked like most of the produce came from behind our shoulders as per the photo below. Zac asked about the delicious lamb he had and sure enough it was once hanging out in that paddock you can see. One of his old mates is in the photo just above Jane's head. 

 

  

 

 

Here is little Loui and I below, with Sophie and Connor teaming up to cause some havoc in the restaurant garden. Even though all the table waiting was done by one old, slightly grumpy French man, it was truly a memorable lunch. 

 





 

 



 

It was great having Zac, Mia and Loui here, our visits with them included Sarlat and Domme, a 13th century fortified town where some of the Knights Templar were locked up before they were put to death. The walls of one of the watch towers were they were held is covered in graffiti proclaiming their innocence. Now days its a beautiful, interesting old town with amazing views of the Dordogne River valley. Below is Sophie striking a pose (and Connor not so happy about it) at Domme - a must see for visitors.   

 

 

Here is Zac and Jane and the kids hanging out in the tree house.  Really enjoying spending so much more time with the kids. Connor is starting to say more and more words. The word "car" is a regular, he loves them! Car pants, car shoes, car toys, car everything, he's a real potential for a full blown rev head later in life. Sophie has been talking a lot in French, well I don't think it actually means anything. I think she's just mimicking the other kids at school. Very cute in any case.

 

 

 



Bonne santé et a bientot (good health and catch up later)

Jane, Sophie, Connor and me.

 

Sophie's first day at school, and the beasts escape!

Cooked my first duck breasts last night, and we were happy. They were bought already marinated in cepes, delicious. On Saturday evening our neighbour, Tony, is going to show us how to cook them French style, over a BBQ.

 

Yesterday was a big day for the Scott household in The Lot, Sophie had her first day at school. She was very unsure to start off with (see photo below), but overall it went very well, no tears, and Sophie said she made a friend. I asked her was there any other English speaking children there, and the answer was no. I'd love to be a fly on the wall. She said they sang songs mostly and read books. She is starting off doing just mornings. The head teacher said she was fine, so she'll be back tomorrow. Sophie is definitely developing a thirst to learn some of the French language, it seems now it is out of necessity. A lot like Jane and I really.

 

 

We don't have English TV here, it's all French. I don't mind at all, it's interesting, and it helps our French. On Saturday night for example we watched the "The Voice". It's a classic, the old French rock star judges are very cool, and it goes for about three hours! About half the songs are popular English songs sung with French accents and the rest are French songs. 

Had a three course lunch a couple of days ago and for the entree a duck gizzard salad was served. Between my last duck gizzard salad and this one I found out what duck gizzard is. It's the internal organ of a duck, near it's throat, that stores the grit collected from the ground. This grit, or dirt you could call it, is what is used to make the shell of the eggs it lays. It didn't taste as good the second time around. 

 

With Mark and Sabina away for a few days, we a looking after the two donkeys (or the two beasts as Sabina funnily refers to them) and the chickens. Should be an easy job right, ....a couple of nights ago, after a couple of drinks I realised that the chickens were still out and night had just about fallen. So out I went, using my iPhone torch, and through the darkness I saw what looked like a donkey starring straight at me. One of the donkeys had escaped! I went back to get the troops and after a lot negotiating we managed to put her back where she belonged. She has since escaped twice more, and one morning her mate, Ziggy, escaped as well. The following shows Jane using the softly, softly approach on Ziggy.

 

 

Here is me using the tough approach....

 

 

 

 

Success, both donkeys in their yard!

 

 

 

On Saturday we took delivery of our Grande Scenic Renualt, and what's really cool is the number plates now shows "46", which is our area, The Lot's, number - one step forward in becoming almost a local. In French style he gave Jane AND Sophie a big bunch of flowers and Connor a rugby football.  The picture below shows the carsalesman, Frederic, Jane, and Connor, and Sophie is in the car with her flowers.

 

 

 

Having the car has given us even more motivation to jump in and discover more of France, there is so much too see. The other day we visited the Padirac caves, amazing. We actually went for a boat ride on a river that was about 100 meters below ground! The best caves I have ever scene by far. The photo below is looking up at the entrance of the cave. I'd say I'm over 50 meters below ground. 

 

Here is a photo of Sophie and her new bike which we bought off Leboncoin, France's equivalent to Gumtree, and Sophie's friend, Leena, who was staying in the house next to us for a week. She was from Paris, and they were great mates.

A bientot (catch up later)
Jane, Sophie, Jane, and me

 

 

Sophie's birthday, one to remember

Today was one of those days you wish you could bottle. It was Sophie's 4th birthday, and with her being a long way away from her friends at home, we were determined to make it a great day for her. And we did! We figure that when she starts school here she will meet some local kids and then maybe we can have another get together for her and her new French friends. So we started off with some lovely Skype chats with the folks in Australia, followed by pancakes, a drive in the country, followed by lunch at Sophie's favourite restaurant ( as it has a playground next to it - we've been there once before :)), followed by another drive in the country, .... caught the first half of a choral concert in a beautiful old church, and ended the day with candles and cake at home!

Here they are below with our beautiful back drop, note one of Sophie's dolls planted in the cake. This backdrop also doubles as our breakfast/lunch/dining table and my office.

Here we are at lunch. We had duck foie gras for the first time - tasty but pretty rich too. It literally means duck "liver fat", nice hey. Also on Jane's plate, which we shared, was smoked duck breast and duck gizzards, with salad. When in Rome....

The snails were quite nice too, well I enjoyed them, not enough meat though. Jane was not too sure about them.

Connor just loves his French food. Here he is, enjoying some pizza, and believe me the French know how to make pizza, yum!!

Below is this really interesting fortified Gallo-Roman church in this beautiful little village, Besse, which we came across on our drive today. It's actually in the Dordogne Department, right next to us in The Lot. The weather was fantastic ("formidable" in French) today with the sun shining and people starting to actually use their pools. I'd say it reached about 27c! Very welcome.

THE BEASTS HAVE ARRIVED. When we first enquired about our house here, Sabina mentioned that they daily feed the beasts. I wasn't quite sure what she meant a first. But here they are, a couple of very cute donkeys, that I'm sure we'll get to know well. They were up until recently on Sabina's other farm. We have also got chickens and a pair of geese (not intended foie gras, as far as I know) on the way, which will be good for the kids. We will be feeding them on some days to help out.

We had our first invite to someone's place in the hamlet. Beth, a really nice American lady who married a French guy many years ago, invited us up there for afternoon tea, where we also met a nice English couple who live close to us. Most of the houses in the hamlet are owned by Parisians, as their country house. We met one such couple the other day who said they live five minutes away from the Opera House in Paris - the life hey. Beth has been really helpful with her little tips for living in the area.

 

Bye for now, best wishes, Jane, Sophie, Connor, and me.

 

A great birthday for Sophie and another great day in the South of France!