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Newsletter Winter 2018 / Spring 2019
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Pitelet Newsletter
Tel: 0033 4 73 94 06 53 |
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Hello again. Better late than never! It's been a while and longer than we had intended. We had problems with our computer and eventually had to buy a new one. Then we found that our back-up system had not been working correctly and so we have lost some recent files and photos. Anyway, we're back! When spring arrived here in Pitelet and it was so lovely to see Nature waking up again and to hear the cuckoo, but after the unprecedented heatwave we have been having, summer has really settled in suddenly. |
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September in Paris. Andrée has a Canadian friend who she had never met in person and Susan and her husband were planning to visit Europe and Paris was on the agenda. Could we meet up? And so we booked our train tickets and a small appartment in an apparthotel and off we went. It was our first serious visit to the city and we didn't have a lot of time and so we concentrated on finding our bearings and seeing the sites by using the open top bus during the day and meeting up with Susan and Boris in the evening. They are such warm and open people that we couldn't help but have a good time! |
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Signs of friendship After 12 years of living here, we are still often touched by signs of friendship. And there were two such occasions in October last year. Locally distilled eau de vie has always played an important role in the lives of the Auvergnat people; as a drink to aid the digestion after a meal, with lily leaves to heal a cut or graize or, in times gone by, drunk first thing in the morning to act as an internal anti-freeze! And in some bottles one can find wooden models in the fashion of a "ship in a bottle". Gary had been looking for one of these and at dinner with friends one evening he asked if they knew where he could buy one. Martine disappeared and a few minutes later appeared with one that had belonged to her father, a man we had appreciated very much. He had been a keen hunter and the model is of a man and his dog. Later in the same month we received an invitation from Josette, an elderly neighbour in the village, to go one afternoon to drink a coffee with her. She is a widow who lost her husband very suddenly several years before. We never knew him; he had assembled and polished knives for a living from his workshop next to their house. Jojo announced that she had a gift for us and presented each of us with a pocket knife made from pieces her husband, Réné, had left behind. She had asked one of her sons to mount and polish them for us. We'll let you guess whose has the corkscrew! And then on the 1 May there was a knock at the door. There stood Dédée, our nearest neighbour, 85 years old, with a small bunch of lily of the valley in her hand; a sign of friendship in France on this day. |
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Vegetable and chocolate sausages. Just across the border in the neighbouring department of the Loire is a small town called Böen and in December every year the tradition is for the local buthchers to make boudin d'herbe and for the local bakers to make boudin au chocolat. We were invited were invited with friends to eat both of these one evening. Boudin d'herbe is a sausage made from chopped green vegetables and scallions bound together with pig fat and blood. It is eaten with potatoes and is very tasty. The boudin au chocolat (pictured) is a sausage-shaped Genoise sponge cake, filled with chocolate butter cream and wrapped in chocolate fondant icing tied at each end with string. It follows as the dessert.
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Another tradition of the Auvergne. Traditionally on the Sunday after mardi gras in February or March villagers would celebrate Lent and at the same time any marriages that have taken place in the past year. And we were invited to such a celebration by the daughter and son-in-law of some neighbours in the village where they live. Throughout the morning the men occupied themselves by making a fougat, a big bonfire in the centre of which is a tall green pine tree which has been stripped of all but its uppermost branches. The women are busy in the kitchen making bugnes, small doughnuts and Andrée sat with the grandmother and another neighbour making paper roses. These were made into a ring which was hung at the top of the tree together with a can of petrol. As night falls the fire is lit by some of the men shooting at the can. Then the eating and drinking can start. The festivites end when the tree falls but not before some of the younger members have attempted to jump across the embers! |
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Our best wishes to you all. If all the reports are correct, because of the uncertainties surrounding Brexit, many people in the UK are choosing not to visit Europe this year and are opting to stay in the UK. We noticeably have received fewer enquiries from Britain this year. Wherever you are spending your holidays, we wish you a wonderful time. Until the next time and with our very best wishes. Andrée and Gary. |
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