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Harvest

Keith Eckstein — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:00:04 +0000

It’s that time of the year again; when the harvest is cut and the hay is baled.

And boys will be boys….

No matter how old they might be!

I’m not sure why the Combine Harvester decided to work through until 2am?

It certainly did a good job though!

I was going to ask if he could cut the grass as well….

But then thought better of it!

Please click on the photos to see them full size

There’s something about a bale of hay that brings out the boy in all of us!

Please click on the photos to see them full size

All the best

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A visitor…

Keith Eckstein — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:00:14 +0000

So, there we were, the Girlie and me….

Sitting outside having a well deserved Apero (as you do), when…

Along came this visitor….

Who plonked himself down in front of our door.

We didn’t know who he belongs to….

Or, more correctly, who belongs to him!

Nice dog, anyway.

Couldn’t eat a whole one, though.

Please click on the photos to see them full size

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

The French Kitchen

A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets.
More information

Cholcolat

Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior.
More information

Five Quarters of the Orange

Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen.
More information

Blackberry Wine

Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy.
More information

The French Market

Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony.
More information

Coastliners

Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made.
More information

Five Quarters of the Orange

Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds.
More information

French Lessons

Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France.
More information

French Flea Bites

The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat.
More information

French Letters
This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times.
More information

French Cricket

Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land.
More information

Home and Dry in France

Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills.
More information

French Kisses

Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works.
More information

Rene and Me
Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’
More information

A Year in the Merde

This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer.
More information

Merde Happens

Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world.
More information

Merde Actually

A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress?
More information

Dial M for Merde

In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming…
More information

Talk to the Snail

The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more!
More information

1000 years of Annoying the French

Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers.
More information

The Olive Farm
This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community.
More information

The Olive Season

This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life.
More information

The Olive Harvest

Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil.
More information

The Olive Tree

THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time.
More information

The Olive Route
A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey.
More information

The Illustrated Olive Farm

The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well.
More information

Petite Anglaise

Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris.
More information

French Kissing

Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information

Tout Sweet
You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life.
More information

Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette

John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls.
More information

Merde!

This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France.
More information

Almost French

“Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there.
More information

A visit from Briony and Rick!

Keith Eckstein — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:07:00 +0000

My sister Briony, and her husband, Rick, came to visit the Girle and me (and of course, the Girlie’s son, Joshy), last weekend.

Although the weather wasn’t wonderful, we did manage to get out and about.

I suppose that that was lucky because I was ill on the Friday when they arrived at the airport at Rennes and left the Girlie to pick them up herself.

She, being a Girlie, got lost and took the long (and scenic), route back to Josselin!

When they finally arrived, we went for a quick wander round Josselin before picking Joshy up for school and heading back to the Girlie’s house, where Briony and Rick were staying.

After a glass of wine (or three), we settled down to a meal (cooked by yours truly.)

As Rick is a vegetarian, we ate 2 different types of pasta with a Ratatouille sauce and a cheese, leak and broccoli sauce (the first time I’ve ever tried that!)

It must have been O.K. as we all pigged ourselves out so much, the cheeseboard was ignored!

On the Saturday, we went into Vannes (sans Joshy who had homework to do) to visit the Saturday Morning market there.

The photos show us relaxing in a harbour-side bar, prior to getting down to the nitty-gritty of buying cheese and veg!

I bought some Lego for Joshy (and me, if the truth be told) to play with – as you can see – I do like a bit of Lego!

Vannes wasn’t quite as packed as it usually is – I guess most of the tourists had gone back home – that suited us fine!

I suppose that the Girlie should be forgiven for phoning home to make sure that Joshy was O.K.

I, however, knew that Joshy would be doing one of three things….

1). Doing his homework.
2). Having a drug and drink fuelled Rave Party or…
3). Playing with his Lego!

I’m not saying that he is a good boy but… the correct answer is, was and always will be….. no 3!

In the evening, we had some aperitifs, outside the Girlie’s house – in order to prepare ourselves for the evening meal!

There’s something so nice about relaxing in the garden (in the sunshine) – whilst someone else cooks the tea (in this case, the Girlie was cooking her speciality – Tartiflette – or, as we know it – Fartiflette!)

Vannes market is an excellent place to visit.

It’s on every Wednesday and Saturday mornings (although the indoor fish market, which is well worth seeing, is on every morning from Monday to Saturday.)

This is a sign on the cheese stall where we pigged out on samples!

On the Sunday, we went to a Vide Greniers (as you do), where I was lucky enough to pick up a Palm IIIc personal organiser for 5 Euros.

This was kind of spooky as the night before, I had forgotten to take some of my pills and had suggested that I needed something to help me remember when to take what – I also mentioned that I wanted a Sony E-Book reader – well, for 5 Euros I got something that would do both jobs.

The picture shows the Girlie trying to work out how it works – good luck to her – even I can’t work it out and I used to support them for my clients at a major Global Investment Bank!

After a trip to La Gacilly, we all returned back to the Girlie’s place when Josh and I sorted out the evening meal.

Josh loves watching Gordon Ramsay on T.V. (as do I) and we quickly turned the Girlies cooking area into “Hell’s Kitchen” (complete with swear words!)

Josh and I decided to do Brown Rice with Ratatouille with Coleslaw and a salad (with some really nice Garlic Bread, as well.)

Almost all the ingredients came from the Girlie’s garden – end of the season, unfortunately – will soon have to go back to buying vegetables!

I think that I realised that Joshy was really getting into cooking (and that I was really his Sous-Chef), when he ordered me out to get some basil to decorate the plate of Garlic bread!

We allowed the Girlie into her kitchen to make an Apple Crumble (her own apples) but, in true Gordon Ramsay style, we complained bitterly about the lack of quality of the pastry chefs of today!

Whilst we were cooking, Briony, Rick and the Girlie were playing Scrabble outside in the sunshine (it’s alright for some, isn’t it?)

Briony won – even if Rick did manage to come up with some rather naughty words!

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

The French Kitchen A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. More information	Cholcolat Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. More information	Blackberry Wine Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. More information
The French Market Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. More information	Coastliners Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. More information	French Lessons Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. More information
French Flea Bites The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. More information	French Letters This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information	French Cricket Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. More information	Home and Dry in France Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. More information
French Kisses Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. More information	Rene and Me Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information	A Year in the Merde This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. More information	Merde Happens Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. More information
Merde Actually A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? More information	Dial M for Merde In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… More information	Talk to the Snail The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! More information	1000 years of Annoying the French Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. More information
The Olive Farm This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information	The Olive Season This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. More information	The Olive Harvest Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. More information	The Olive Tree THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. More information
The Olive Route A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information	The Illustrated Olive Farm The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. More information	Petite Anglaise Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. More information	French Kissing Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information
Tout Sweet You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information	Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. More information	Merde! This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. More information	Almost French “Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. More information

Father’s visit.

Keith Eckstein — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 14:29:28 +0000

Father came to visit last week.

We ate, the first night, at Le Prieure de Clisson in Josselin – to be recommended.

We started with Cassoulet de Escargots and had rabbit for the main course – excellent.

If you are looking for a ‘foodie’ restaurant in Josselin, you have 3 choices… Le Restaurant de le Chateau, at the hotel (locally thought to be the best), The Table de O – very good but, to my mind, the menu at the Prieure de Clisson is, although slightly less adventurous, more appetising.

The next day, Saturday, we did the shopping thing (including way too much cheese – I’ve just finished off what we bought), went mushrooming and, in the evening, ate Fruits de Mer, chez moi.

Sunday started with a Vide Grenier at Louedac (where I bought a boxed set of Rachmaninov CDs (from, I think, an English couple – although we spoke French) and a wok. The lot for five euros – I’m a happy man!). Afterwards we went to Pontivy and had a wander around. We stopped off first for a stock up at the local Aldi to stock up on bargains and had a coffee afterwards. I’m still, after four years, amazed when I have a coffee in a bar and complete strangers come up to shake my hand. I think that ather was amazed, as well.

In Pontivy, we had a wander and then ate at one of the few restaurants open – Le Martray. This is to be found in the old part of the town on le Rue du Pont. Another excellent meal. The cheapest Sunday menu is 17.50 euros. The Grattin de Fruits de Mer is to be recommended!

After eating, we went to look at the chateau. For 1.40 Euros (yes, that all) we were able to wander round the inside of the chateau, taking our time reading the strange history of the families that have lived there. One of the sons of an early Duke, for example, was married off at the age of three in order to prevent a war. Another Duke was know as the “Half idiot evacuee of Cornouille” – nice nickname, that! That’s almost one I could claim for myself!

There is no posh furniture there (or masterpieces on the wall) but that works to the visitor’s advantage – you can let your imagination take over. A great place to go with kids. Watch out for the basement room, though – the stairs are very steep and about 2 miles long!

After Pontivy, we returned home and ate the mushrooms that we had picked the previous day.

Monday, we ate at l’Hotel Pelican – a great meal and very cheap. Tuesday, more fruits de Mer, chez moi and, on Wednesday, Father went home. He did leave behind some goodies….

Charcuterie by Jane Grigson
Chinese five spice (about 5 years supply)
Colemans Mustard Power (4 tins)
2 copies of the Sunday Times
A warning sign (for my front door) – Chats Merchants!

That’s Father for you…..

Sammy & Cindy have something to say about Father’s visit…

Cindy – “A strange man came to visit us. All his fur had fallen off the top of his head and had ended up down on his chin.”

“Daddy said that it was his Daddy but I didn’t like him and didn’t let him stroke me. Sammy let the strange man stroke him. He thought that the strange man was Father Christmas. Sammy’s very silly – he still believes in Father Christmas!”

Sammy – “Father Christmas came to visit!”

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

The French Kitchen A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. More information	Cholcolat Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. More information	Blackberry Wine Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. More information
The French Market Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. More information	Coastliners Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. More information	French Lessons Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. More information
French Flea Bites The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. More information	French Letters This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information	French Cricket Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. More information	Home and Dry in France Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. More information
French Kisses Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. More information	Rene and Me Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information	A Year in the Merde This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. More information	Merde Happens Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. More information
Merde Actually A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? More information	Dial M for Merde In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… More information	Talk to the Snail The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! More information	1000 years of Annoying the French Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. More information
The Olive Farm This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information	The Olive Season This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. More information	The Olive Harvest Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. More information	The Olive Tree THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. More information
The Olive Route A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information	The Illustrated Olive Farm The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. More information	Petite Anglaise Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. More information	French Kissing Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information
Tout Sweet You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information	Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. More information	Merde! This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. More information	Almost French “Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. More information

Still tired, still happy

Keith Eckstein — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 14:55:38 +0000

Once again, I’ve been naughty and not updated the site for a while.

My excuse is that I’ve been very busy getting my other two sites up and running. Work, has also been very busy and I am doing a fair bit of overtime (up to the legal maximum of 43 hours.)

The extra hours aren’t so bad, it’s the extra work during those hours (yesterday both my productions lines hit 1,000 cartons an hour – each carton is 10kg – thus, 20 tonnes an hour – about my maximum!).

So, I overslept this morning and was late into the forest! That doesn’t do, not if one wants to find the best mushrooms. For more details, take a look at…http://www.mushroomdiary.com

Got an email from my sister last night “Get off the internet!”, it said.

I did and phoned her (slightly expecting bad news – sometimes, it’s hard to live in a different country to your aging family. I’m talking about my brothers and sisters here – parents seem to be getting younger by the day. Or, am I just catching them up?).

It wasn’t bad news and we agreed a code for the day (that will arrive) when it is. That done, no point in worrying about it anymore.

Aforementioned sister is coming over at the end of October so I suppose I’ll have to get my hair cut!

Father (lost somewhere in Turkey, at the moment) is also coming over during October but, probably wouldn’t notice hair cut or not.

I seem to have a weekend of work lined up for me – a notepad full of ideas and things to write – it spends all week in my pocket at work; I jot things down as they arrive.

I also stumbled upon a story in the forest this morning – very short but I think it should be nice – if it appears, it’ll appear on the mushroom site.

Finally, of course, there is the garden.

After hurricane George (is that a political presage of things to come – for those of you unlucky enough to be back in the UK?), I have plant pots to repair/chuck away and a fair bit of tidying to do.

The overloaded Walnut tree lost a clump of branches and they will need to be cleared up. On top of that, there are pears everywhere – I’ll have to think what I’ll do with them.

So, on that note, I need to get my wellies on (again) and get down to work!

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

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