Mosaic Monday # 72 - life lately

Life lately has been centred around the home, no foreign vacations planned for this month unlike previous years when we've escaped the February glooms and headed off to enjoy winter sunshine in Greece.

There's been plenty of rain but, fingers crossed, we have so far escaped the snow that has blanketed Paris this week. The sun has been out occasionally and whilst taking Fleur out for a " tiddle time" early one morning the Senior Partner captured these scenes in the lane.

A low lying sun created beautiful shadows on the staircase and turned the spotlight onto one lonely daffodil, a victim of inclement weather earlier in the week, brightening the kitchen windowsill.

Life's culinary influences have lately come from some unusual places.

1. A FB post from our nephew, who is coming with his girlfriend to visit us next week, prompted the SP to make a big pot of Delia Smith's French Onion Soup for our lunch and to freeze ready for company.
Just look at those mouthwateringly crunchy garlic croutons smothered in melting Gruyere cheese floating on top of the soup! See how he tortures spoils me, I'll never regain my sylph like figure at this rate.

Click here for the recipe @ Delia online.

2. After a busy day I was looking for something fast and easy to make for supper.

Pinterest came to my aid and in no time at all penne pasta with steamed salmon fillets in a creamy broccoli cheese sauce was on the table.

3. I know I'm not alone in owning too many cook books (about 50 at the last count). I enjoy reading a cook book almost as much as I enjoy reading a novel, even if I have no plans to make anything.
Mrs Charles Darwin's Recipe book (revived and illustrated) isn't just a collection of some of her wonderful original recipes (written in her own hand) it is also a great read giving detailed insights into the lives that Emma and Charles led.
It so happened that I was looking through the Recipe book recently practically drooling over the beautiful photography and illustrations when I came across this recipe for Burnt Rice and decided to give it a try.
Ingredients:
pudding or medium grain rice (50g/2oz)
butter (30g/1oz)
cream and milk (1 cup or 250 ml each)
sugar (50g/2oz)
2 eggs, separated.
Method:
Simmer the rice in the milk and cream until it is completely soft, takes between 20 and 30 minutes, stir occasionally to prevent the rice catching on the bottom of the pan.
Remove from the heat, add the butter, 1 teaspoon of sugar and the egg yolks.
Whip the egg whites into soft peaks, gently fold into the rice mixture.
Pour into a shallow ovenproof dish and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Sprinkle the remaining sugar evenly over the top, place under a hot broiler/grill for a few minutes.
Note from me: watch it carefully or it might become too burnt, like mine did.
I also used golden caster sugar which perhaps was a mistake, it was delicious nevertheless.

Mrs D's book has not been returned to the main bookshelf to gather dust but has now taken up pride of place amongst the kitchen cookbooks that I refer to most often, it's my new favourite and still available on Amazon if you'd like to try Emma's recipes for yourself.

Normandy Life

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Beachcombing Sunday

I recently started to look at beachcombing in a totally different way.
Instead of collecting shells or searching out glittering pieces of sea glass I've started to collect plastic garbage during my Sunday walk on the beach.
Our beach, the one we head to every Sunday, encompasses the sea side villages of Vierville sur Mer, St Laurent sur Mer and Colleville sur Mer.

It's also known as Omaha Beach.

After a 30 minute walk this morning I was thinking maybe next week I'll need a bigger bag.
In the distance we spotted another couple also picking up garbage, a good sign.

Cleaning up the beach even in this small way is my way of showing respect.
I'm not looking to blow my own trumpet or play the blame game, although I would like to know how a plastic carton that once held semi skimmed milk and was bought at Tesco, UK came to be there.
I'm just looking to raise awareness in us all.
Bon dimanche.

Mosaic Monday # 71 - doing my bit for the planet

There's been a lot in the media recently about the build up of discarded plastic garbage and how it is slowly poisoning marine life and choking the ocean.
Last December a UN resolution calling for targets to tackle the problem was rejected by China, the US and India. Countries did agree that there should be measures put in place to stop plastic entering the sea but no timetable or plans on what or when they might be were agreed upon.
I did a little bit of online research to see what is being done and I was amazed at the scale and magnitude of the problem.
Plastic Oceans is an action group with plenty of ideas and projects in place, click here to visit their website if you are interested in learning what needs to be done.
Click here to watch a trailer of their inspirational film.
As some of you might know Sunday mornings are when we take M'Selle Fleur for a good long walk on the beach at Colleville sur Mer.
We enjoy the peace, tranquility and wide open spaces whilst she runs around like crazy socialising with the other dogs who are out taking their people for a walk.
As an experiment last weekend I tucked a plastic (!) shopping bag into my pocket before we left home.
I've always regarded our beach as being clean but I thought I might find some odds and ends of plastic washed up by the tide that I could carry away with me.

I came across this huge clump of twisted rope, plastic cords and goodness knows what else.

I tried to lift it but it was buried deep in the sand and too heavy to shift.

Imagine the damage this could cause to marine life.

I walked for about 20 minutes picking up bits and pieces as I went along.

9 broken pieces of plastic
1 yellow balloon
7 lengths of rope/twine, either all plastic or with plastic elements
2 plastic bottle tops
2 metal cans
1 plastic coated paper carton
1 shuttlecock
1 length of plastic tape
1 large plastic bottle

We are enjoying watching Sir David Attenborough's Blue Planet 2 on BBC television,
click on the link above to see episodes
and the prequel of this amazing documentary on the link below

Blue Planet 2

This new kind of beachcombing is going to be my way of doing my bit for the planet.

Update.

I took my multi-use plastic carrier to the beach again this morning (Sunday 04/02/18) but due to a very strong incoming tide no beachcombing took place this week!

Normandy Life

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Mosaic Monday # 70 - early signs of spring

For Mosaic Monday today I'm sharing some images of the beautiful countryside that surrounds our home as it begins to transition from winter to spring.
I found this lovely little ode to snowdrops, pretty little harbingers of spring already beginning to appear this month in gardens and lanes.

The Snowdrop, winter's timid child,

Awakes to life, bedew'd with tears.

- Mary Robinson

This month the weather has been wet and windy but there have been some beautiful sunny days too.

Here's what January has looked like hereabouts.

depleted log pile

moss growing on a cherry tree

clematite armandii "Apple Blossom" by the front door

daffodils in the garden

snowdrops;  catkins,  primroses, ajonc, wild orchid and late mushrooms in the lane

stormy skies above

silver birch trees swaying in the wind

late afternoon as rain clouds start to move over the village once again

Hazel or birch catkins, not sure which.

Another early sign of spring?

Normandy Life

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Mosaic Monday # 69 - letting go of hygge? No, I didn't think so.

I first heard about hygge, the Danish lifestyle concept of comfortable coziness,  about two maybe three years ago when the internet was suddenly buzzing with ideas of how we could incorporate hygge into our daily lives.

The Oxford English Dictionary included hygge in it's list of words of 2016.

A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture.

I heard a rumour last year that a Swedish word "Lagom" which means "just the right amount"  had replaced hygge as a life concept, I wasn't personally ready to abandon cosy but I liked the sound of lagom too.

It fits right in with the Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy philosophy, which has been on my bedside table now for more years that I can remember, a reminder to always show gratitude especially for the small every day things that make life good.

Incorporating hygge into our daily lives this week was easy to do from the cosy warmth of the kitchen, the heart of the home.

I made a wonderful broccoli and cheddar cheese soup from a recipe that I saw on Diane's  Lavender Dreams blog, which she shared @ MM # 67.

I baked a simple rustic Irish loaf, in the oven, to serve along with the soup.
Click here for Diane's recipe, if you make this soup you won't be disappointed.

Seville orange marmalade always seems to be something that people make in January so I thought I'd give that a try. I gathered all the ingredients together to follow the Delia Smith method but was shocked at the amount of sugar in the recipe. 2kg of sugar to 1kg of Seville oranges!

I called the Senior Partner in for a second opinion and his reaction was even stronger than mine, something along the lines of "are you joking, we can't eat that much sugar!"

So, I put everything away again but not before taking a photo to show my good intentions.

Since buying my bread maker I have been wanting to make a British classic tea time sweet treat and a childhood favourite - Chelsea Buns.
It took me 30 minutes to gather the ingredients together, the bread maker took two and a half hours to make the enriched dough. Preparing and adding the filling to the punched down dough whiled away another 20 minutes then I read my book for half an hour in front of the wood burner as the buns, sitting in a baking tin on the hearth below, doubled in size.
Finally it was into the oven with them for 20 minutes, after they had cooled slightly I drizzled them with vanilla icing et voila!

Was it worth it? 

Absolutely - pure hygge.

Normandy Life

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Mosaic Monday # 68 - Five on Monday.

There used to be a weekly meme, which I always enjoyed being a part of, called Five On Friday hosted by Amy @ Love Made My Home. A while ago Amy took a break from blogging but I'm happy to tell you that she's blogging again so please stop by and say welcome back, Amy!

For my MM post today here are 5+ things that happened here recently.

New Year - new haircut!

You may have seen on the news that Storm Eleanor brought the New Year in with more than a few bangs as thunder, lightening and gale force winds ripped across Normandy. The village which we live in sits on the edge of the Marais (marsh) National Park and some of the fields where cows and sheep graze in summer are completely under water, the French for flood is "inondation" and signs are placed at the roadside when the road between the fields are impassable.

After a couple of days Eleanor went away to continue wreaking weather havoc in the UK .

Whilst she was gone the weather here was so mild that the SP got the mower out and gave the lawn in front of the house its first haircut of 2018!

Eleanor wasn’t finished with us though and our beach walk a few days later had to be cut short as we got sandblasted and buffeted by the wind. Later that evening we enjoyed a cosy dinner for two in front of the fire. The SP's signature dish of coq au vin and root vegetable mash with carrots on the side, afterwards we settled down to watch a new drama series on TV.

January is the month that UK TV companies launch new programmes and there are two in particular that we’ll be watching this month, the BBC’s Hard Sun and ITV’s Kiri. Both feature strong women in the leading roles, Aygness Deyn (Hard Sun) was born in the town of Littleborough, Lancs, which is about 15 miles from Oldham where Sarah Lancashire (Kiri) was born and coincidentally also the town where I was born and raised.

Finally, a book recommendation for all those who loved Downton Abbey - “Belgravia” by Julian Fellowes which I thoroughly enjoyed reading this week.

Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode.
Set in the 1840s when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche, Belgravia is peopled by a rich cast of characters. But the story begins on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.  (text from Goodreads).

Normandy Life

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Mosaic Monday # 67 - Life is Good

In my first post of 2017 I declared that it was going to be a ridiculously amazing year and after looking back through my blog posts of the last 12 months I'm inclined to say "Oh, yes it was!"
If you've been a visitor to my blog for even the shortest time you probably have guessed that taking trips, experiencing new cultures, discovering interesting places, living in Normandy and enjoying good things to eat are the top five topics of this blog.
Last year we visited the Greek island of Crete for the first time, we fell in love with the scenery, the people and the slow pace of life.
Special highlights of that trip were the day spent at Agreco Farm (click on the link here for a tour) and the visit to the historic island of Spinalonga, two experiences I shall remember for a very long time.

We rented a villa in the small seaside village of Panormas as our base.

In July we enjoyed some crazy time with family in Orlando Florida it was good to spend time with them "doing the theme parks" 

I wonder where our itchy feet will take us in 2018?

Until then 

to quote Dorothy 

"there's no place like home"

Here are some links to my posts about interesting places which we explored closer to home such as the sculpture park and Cathedral in Cerisy, fascinating La Maison du Biscuit and historic Château de Colombières,  if you'd like to read or perhaps reread those posts.

la vie quotidienne en Normandie

Normandy Life

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