Sunday Favourites with Chari.

Joining Chari @ Happy To Design for the final Sunday Favourites of 2011
 with a rerun of a post from Christmas 2010.

I haven't come across this game in blogland so far this year

and thought we could have some fun with it once again.

Dining room tree, where did all the snow go?

Earlier this week I came across a Christmas meme that the lovely Lorrie @ Fabric, Paper & Thread had joined.

Now that I have most of my decorating done, just the tree in the library to finish off, I sat down with a cup of tea and played along.
1.Hot Chocolate or apple cider?
Hot chocolate.
2. Turkey or Ham?
Turkey.
3. Do you get a fake or real-you-cut-it-yourself Christmas tree?
After many years of one of each, we now have 2 fake trees.
4. Decorations on the outside of your house?
 Usually just a pair of wreaths on the double front doors although last year I did decorate the box topiaries too.
5. Snowball fights or sleddin’?
As we Brits would say, “sledging”.
6. Do you enjoy going downtown shopping?
 If it’s downtown London yes, otherwise no.
7. Favorite Christmas song?
 Happy Christmas (War is over) John Lennon. Favourite Carol: Once in Royal David’s City.
8. How do you feel about Christmas movies?
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without watching “A Wonderful Life” at least once.
9. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?
November 30th.
10. Stockings before or after presents?
Stockings in bed with tea & toast.
11. Go to someone else’s house or they come to you?
We always spend Christmas “a deux” at home.
12. Do you read the Christmas Story? If so when?
No.
13. What do you do after presents and dinner?
 Watch the Queen on BBC television.
14. What is your favorite holiday smell?
Gluhwein.
15. Ice skating or walking around the mall?
Neither, a long dog walk on the beach would be my preference.
16. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve, or wait until Christmas day?
One table present each during dinner on Christmas Eve.
17. Favorite Christmas memory?
A horse drawn sleigh ride with friends through the snow to a schnappshaus deep in the forest of Ellmau, Austria.
18. Favorite Part about winter?
The first snow fall and log fires.
19. Ever been kissed under mistletoe?
Many times!

My latest tree ornament:
 A portly French waiter with tray aloft
holding a bottle of wine & a glass.
Souvenir from HHI

Care to play along?
Simply cut & paste the questions below.
1. Hot Chocolate or apple cider?
2. Turkey or Ham?
3. Do you get a fake or real-you-cut-it-yourself Christmas tree?
4. Decorations on the outside of your house?
5. Snowball fights or sleddin’?
6. Do you enjoy going downtown shopping?
7. Favorite Christmas song?
8. How do you feel about Christmas movies?
9. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?
10. Stockings before or after presents?
11. Go to someone else’s house or they come to you?
12. Do you read the Christmas Story? If so when?
13. What do you do after presents and dinner?
14. What is your favorite holiday smell?
15. Ice skating or walking around the mall?
16. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve, or wait until Christmas day?
17. Favorite Christmas memory?
18. Favorite Part about winter?
19. Ever been kissed under mistletoe?

With many thanks to chocolatechic for starting this thread.

Sunday Favourites with Chari.

You may have noticed that I recently changed my header image to reflect the season.
 I may tweak it again during the next few days
 but in case I decide to leave the Bavarian Santa in pride of place
 I thought I'd share with you once more this explanatory post from last year.

I hadn't planned on blogging today as I've been busy decorating the Christmas tree for the dining room and baking more mince pies.
However, a comment left on my last post by a confused Jenny @ Jenny's Bouquets needs addressing tout suite!

This is what Jenny had to say.................

"I want to come to your house for Christmas! But, I can't find the head on your Bavarian Santa in your header. I keep looking for it every day but can't see it. I may be blind. All is beautiful!
Love,

Jenny"

Well, Jenny I'm pleased to say that you aren't going blind.

I do wonder though if anyone else is thinking that I may be displaying a headless St Nick??

The dear old man with his long white beard 

is so beautifully bundled up in his ivory coloured, fur trimmed robe and hood

 that it's very hard to see his little face.

So, here's a closeup.

 He has the bluest, kindest eyes I've ever seen.

A back view and a peek into his sack.

Joining Chari @ Happy To Design

for

Sunday Favourites with Chari.

For Chari's Sunday Favourites this week here's another glimpse into la vie quotidienne here in Normandy in a post from May 2009.
Every country in Europe has it's own rules & regulations regarding recycling, it seems.
When we first moved to France, almost 13 years ago, our household garbage was collected every 2 weeks (!) after a couple of years this changed to weekly.
There were also twice yearly collections of old/unwanted metal items. These had to be placed in the street for collection and reminded us of the "sperrmuhl" collections we enjoyed when we lived in Bavaria.
Things remained that way for a long time and then we received a letter telling of a special card/permis that we could obtain from "la mairie" which would entitle us to use the local "dechetterie" or as we like to refer to it "the dump".
This certainly opened up a new world of special containers in which we could dispose of all those tricky items we had stashed in the outbuildings. Hazardous products such as old paint cans & aerosols, polysterene chips (the bane of my life), unwanted clothing, broken electrical items and much much more, the list was endless.
The "dechetterie" is very strictly operated by the "Gardien" who demands to see your "permis" when you arrive and then watches like a hawk to make sure that, heaven forfend, you place something in the wrong container.
So.....we loaded up the car at the weekend and went to the dump and as is the case with almost everything we do these days I captured the moment with my trusty Nikon Coolpix for a scrapbook page. I think it turned out quite well, n'est pas.

I'll tell you about the bottle bank another day..............................

Sunday Favourites with Chari.

For Chari's Sunday Favourites @ Happy To Design  today, a rerun of a  post from July 2009 which you might enjoy.

Sometimes the last thing my husband wants to do is trail around a flea market with me, but sometimes he humours me and comes along.
And so it was that yesterday, Bastille Day, we took a drive to Bricquebec on the Contenin Peninsula to a vide grenier (flea market) which I had seen advertised.

Well, guess what?

There wasn't one, I was wrong! and he was not a happy man -  until we spotted L'Epicerie Parisienne.

Those of you who know my other half know that he is a very good cook, quite a gourmand & wine connoisseur, so we spent a very pleasant 20 minutes or so wandering around this wonderful food store admiring the food and the eclectic decor.

Madame, la patronne, was a delight and when I enquired, of Monsieur, if it was o.k. for me to photograph his displays, he answered:
"S'il vous plaît, Madame, comme si vous étiez à chez vous".

Today, we enjoyed some of our purchases from L'Epicerie Parisienne for lunch.

I hope that you have enjoyed a second visit to l'epicerie today, bon dimanche a tout.

Sunday Favourites Re Run with Chari.

Happy Mothers Day to all.
Here's a chance to see how we dealt with a mini drama but really not a crisis, a couple of years ago when my surrogate child (!) Mr Ben fell in the pond!


Breakfast preparations came to an abrupt halt at 07.45 am today when as I briefly glanced out of the open door I saw our cocker spaniel, Ben, struggling but failing (!) to climb out of the pond in our front garden!
He must have walked around this pond at least 5 times a day since he came to live at the Presbytere (almost 8 years ago) and this was the first time he had ever taken a dip.
I don't know who received the bigger shock him or me, or maybe it was my other half, Roger, as I screamed "Ben's fallen in the pond".

Now, this pond isn't an attractive feature in the garden, the only thing pretty about it is that it's pretty yucky, so when I finally yanked Ben out of there he was in a very digusting state, not what you want to deal with just before your petit dejeuner.

I'll spare you the details, suffice it to say we gave him a very thorough bath using the outside garden hose & masses of doggy shampoo.

Roger then dried him off using my hairdryer until he resembled his former self.

The pix show just what Ben thought of that. Hope you're day get's off to a better start than ours.

Linking through to Chari's @ Happy to Design blog today and her Sunday Favourites Rerun meme, a super idea which allows us to revisit previous posts.

Sunday Favourites. My first blog post 24th April 2008

Chari@ Happy To Design is celebrating her 1st Birthday of Sunday Favourite Reruns today with a fabulous Giveaway.
Since yesterday was my 2nd Blogaversary I thought it might be nice to share my very first post which surprise, surprise was about my vegetable garden. My first love! I think I've learned a thing or two about blogging since then!!

"When we bought this house I inherited a vegetable garden and for a number of years I've been happy just pottering around and growing salad, beans, peas, courgettes etc. in quite a slapdash manner I must say!
This Spring, however, I'm trying to be a little more structured and so have had Sean (my new gardener) create 3 long beds dissected by a pair of paths using wood pavers
Today at the weekly market in Le Molay Littry I bought the first plants to go in the new potager. 4 sorts of salad; courgettes; tomatoes; cauliflower (chou fleur, so much prettier in French); beetroot (betterave); celeri and seed potatoes.
There will also be a section with herbs: parsley; coriander; rosmarin; wild garlic; basil; sage and mint (but in pots to contain the roots which would take over the whole place if planted in the soil).
In the potting shed I already have spinach; pumpkin and runner bean seedlings sprouting and when the soil has warmed up a little more I shall plant haricort vert and for the first time haricot jeune seeds straight into the prepared beds.
My bedside reading now is a gardening magazine and I'll welcome any tips that you feel will help with mynew project.
Check back for more info and hopefully, pix of my progress over the coming weeks."
Things aren't that much different in the potager two years on, except that I am growing a lot more from seed than I did back then.

Happy Birthday Chari!

Sunday Favourites, more news from the potager.

I had so many nice comments on my Alphabe-Thursday "K is for Kitchen Garden" post last week that for Chari's Sunday Favourites Rerun @Happy to Design today I thought I'd show some more of what goes on around the potager during the year.
Below is a post that originally went up last June and if you'd like to see even more home grown veggies click here for a post from the year before!

Some of you may remember from a post last year that a few years ago a pair of moorhens decided to make their home on the small pond next to the potager.
This year they produced just the one chick but it is growing well thanks to non stop feeding from the doting parent.
I feed them stale bread every morning, papa moorhen comes to the door & squawks until I go out.
Today I watched as he & the chick walked along the top of the garden wall, a first for the youngster.
6 times papa brought bread to the chick and 6 times the little beggar dropped it over the side into the field.
What a patient parent!

The vegetable garden is coming along well this year, the potatoes are great and may well take over the plot!
Thanks Sean!


We should be having blueberries with everything quite soon and the haricot beans are just beginning to flower which bodes well for later next month.

Courgettes are looking sickly (no idea why) but the bettraves (beets) are doing well after a shaky start.
We need rain!Please do go over and join Chari for her Sunday Favourites rerun meme, there's always a lot of fun going on there.

Sunday Favourites Rerun.

We are very lucky that twice a week a very nice man in a white van delivers fresh bread to our door.
Whether or not he'll be able to get through the snow to us today I don't know, but I really hope he does.
The reason being, is that, we have ordered from him a very special cake a "Galette des Rois" and since we don't like marzipan our galette will have a filling of apple compote.
The custom of sharing a cake on January 6th, associated in Catholic countries with the visit of the Wise Men to the baby Jesus, dates to pre- Christian times.

Post Script.

He made it!! He had to park in the lane and come up the drive on foot but he did it!!

And, here's the proof.

A special treat for afternoon tea.

For Chari's Sunday Favourites meme @ Happy to Design, here is a post that I wrote a little while back about fèves, the small epiphany trinkets which have been the QCI Meeting Farewell Dinner party favours in years past.
There is also a Sunday Favourites Rerun on the QCI blog today,please be sure to visit Chari and all today's participants.

It's Three or more Tuesday over at Tam's The Gypsy's Corner, a great show & tell party that's a treat for the eyes.

So, today I'm showing off my collection of fèves.

Followers of my blog may have gathered by now that I collect the French pottery known as Quimper faience. Yes, really!
You probably also know that the 10th Annual meeting of the QCI will be taking place next month in Dallas.

Click here to go to the QCI Blog to read all about the fun in store.
I have attended the past 9 meetings, starting with Washington in 2000, up until Philadelphia last year. I even co hosted the 2007 meeting here in France and will be co hosting again next year in Savannah, Georgia.
The meetings are always great fun and a wonderful way of connecting with fellow collectors and meeting up with friends discovered through our shared love of Quimper.

The Grand Finale of these events is always the Farewell Dinner and in recent years each guest has received a small party favour of fèves (epiphany trinkets) as they take their places at table.
In France “La galette des Rois” ("the king's cake") celebrates the Epiphany and is traditionally sold and consumed a few days before and after January 6 (although today in France, it is available in bakeries for the entire month of January). The cake consists of flaky puff pastry layers with a dense center of frangipane, raspberry, apple, and other flavors, as the baker is inspired.

In times gone by, a dried bean was hidden in the cake, and the person who found it was king for the day. The French word for bean is "fève"; however, although beans were replaced in 1870 by small figures in porcelain and, more recently, plastic, these trinkets are still called “fèves.”

The "fèves" are generally produced in theme series, with every possible theme imaginable, including Disney figures, regional motifs, ceramics, antiques, every aspect of modern life, etc. They have become very popular collectibles and can often be bought separately. Any series is generally produced for one year only.

For several years the fèves presented at the Q Club dinner were tiny figurines of Breton people.
In 2008 our gift was a tiny plate decorated with a traditional Quimper motif.

Over the years I have accumulated quite a collection of figurines and I was so enchanted by the little plate last year that I purchased the complete set.

The series of Quimper plates was produced for Epiphany 2008. It consists of ten pieces, each a miniature reproduction of a real Quimper plate, either Henriot or HB. Many "fèves" are titled, and these are marked "Les Assiettes de Quimper" (The Plates of Quimper) on the reverse side.

I believe that stocks are limited but if you would also like to add a set of plates or figurines to your Q collection click here

à bien tôt
Maggie

Sunday Favourites.

One of my favourite gifts from my lovely DH this Christmas was the new Jamie Oliver cookbook "Jamie at Home, Cook Your Way to the Good Life" which combines two of my favourite things to do: growing vegetables and cooking.
How good is that?
I've only dipped into it's pages so far but already my head is swimming with ideas of new vegetables to try and of course the great recipes Jamie has devised to showcase the produce he grows.
In the spring and summer months (and I can't be the only one who's thoughts are already drifting that way) I like nothing better than to mooch around my potager for a few hours, planting and nuturing.
I am tempted to install a small greenhouse this year if only to stand a chance at cultivating tomatoes that ever change colour, from green to red.

But, what I really would like is a potting shed and so this week for Chari's Sunday Favourites meme @ Happy to Design I'd like to share with a post that I wrote back in May 2008.
Click on the link to the PastWhisperers and try and guess which potting shed is "me".

"The potting shed is a great place to be when it's raining and you can't get into the garden to work.
The various seedlings and small plants are thriving in one of our more usable "dependences", it's certainly not as pretty as some potting sheds but it serves all my needs.
Yesterday was warm so I finished planting the potatoes and also put in a row of spinach beet seeds which will come up alongside the spuds.
The starter lettuces that I got at the market last week are doing well and soon we'll be having fresh salad from the potager in the pretty bowl which I found at the vide grenier on Thursday.

In the meantime I think you'll enjoy this
http://www.thepastwhispers.com/Potting_Shed.html "