Circé est arrivée!

She’s certainly made her mark on our lives since she arrived almost two weeks ago. Our golden Labrador puppy was eleven weeks old last Monday and she celebrated with her favourite activities – helping with the housework (she especially loves sweeping the kitchen floor, loading the dishwasher and re-arranging the slippers) and the gardening - mostly picking flowers!

Circé is the name she was given by her breeder, Evelyne Bourgoin. As her mother is Athena, her sister and brothers are also named after gods and goddesses, all beginning with ‘c’, as that’s evidently the letter for dog names this year. In spite of the goddess Circé sounding like a rather tricky character we decided that it’s a pretty name which suits her well. Besides that, it’s much better than any of the names we could come up with – she just doesn’t look like a Clarrie or a Carmela!

Even the most assiduous buffing up on the essentials of bringing up a happy, well-balanced dog isn’t preparation enough for the life-changing experience of getting your first puppy. We bought every dog manual we could find in the Oxfam book shop in Farnham, and a few others, but none of them told us how scary it is to think that her life and well-being are entirely in our hands. If we don’t get the toilet-training right she might grow up to be a delinquent and judging by the size of her paws if she is going to be a delinquent then she’ll be a big one!

But even in the few days we’ve had her she’s gained in confidence and has already learnt to ‘sit’ before her meals and to come when she’s called – in two languages. We’re trying to teach her to be bilingual so she understands our French friends as well as us. Mme Bourgoin told us that she has come across other Labradors who understand both English and French, and that the Labrador is one of the few breeds intelligent enough to cope with this. Maybe Circé has a head start, though, as her father is English.

Regardless of the language, there’s still a way to go as far as her training is concerned. Her toilet habits are a bit erratic, but that’s probably more about us not reading the signs properly. Why is it she can spend an hour chasing about with us outside and then five minutes later do a wee on the doormat? The good news is that she can be completely clean during the night -provided the day starts at 5:30.

But in spite of all of this, there are many unexpected pleasures in being a puppy-owner; the sweet doggy smell made fragrant with lavender when she’s been sauntering around the bushes in the garden; her joy every morning when she realises we didn’t really abandon her overnight and the delight on her face as she bounds towards us when we call her, ears flapping – who says dogs can’t smile?

Take a look at our Flickr pictures of Circé and her family.

Labradors de la Tour Farmina

What the Wikipedia says about the goddess Circe

Heralds of love – or death – or Autumn ?

Our friend and neighbour Claire came round recently with a basket of wild mushrooms which she and her brother had collected from the forest above the village. They were slaty-grey tubes, almost black, and mixed with bits of leaf, bark and vibrant green moss.

“They’re ‘Trompettes de la mort’”, announced Claire, but just in case we were worried about such an alarming name she assured us that she and her brother, an expert in identifying wild mushrooms, had eaten some the day before. She was living proof that they were the real McCoy. To the untrained English ear the rather sinister name could be mistaken for ‘Trompettes de l’amour’ and maybe this is a more appropriate name for such a precious gift. I was very touched not only that she should be so generous in sharing them with us but also that she’d tried them first before giving some to us!

The next day I sorted out some of the trompettes from the moss, bark and leaves and gave them a quick wash and dry in the salad spinner. Purists would probably be horrified by this but they needed a light wash to get rid of the smaller bits of the forest floor and I couldn’t think of a better way of drying them. Once I’d done that I sautéed a couple of shallots in some butter and added the mushrooms, but as I was lightly turning them in the butter over a low heat I spotted an ominous small grey blob and had to remove the whole lot from the pan very quickly.

Ten minutes later, I’d inspected each trumpet and cooking continued. The moral of the story so far is that the fine tubes of the trumpets make great hiding places for little slugs so if you don’t want to make your guests really think you’re trying to poison them, slit each one open and inspect very carefully.

I kept all this hidden from Jonathan – quite an achievement given that while all this was going on he was with me in the kitchen making his speciality omelettes to go with the mushrooms.

I was very surprised that he’d been so enthusiastic when Claire came bearing her gift as up to now he’d been adamant that any fungus which didn’t come from a supermarket was by definition a toadstool. So I knew any additional protein in his lunch would cause a wobble which might wipe any wild food off the menu for ever.

Once this little hurdle had been overcome I stirred the now-certified-vegetarian trumpets lightly in the butter for a few minutes before adding chopped parsley.

After our lunch, I thought about what to do with the rest of the lovely trompettes. Googling ‘preserving wild mushrooms’ gave me a few options and I decided that of these, open-freezing (sans limaces) gave me the most flexibility for their future use (and also gave me the chance to try out the nifty little tray which came with our new fridge-freezer).

This googling revealed some other useful information about trompettes de la mort. According to l’internaute.com they should start appearing in October and are at their best in November and December. So in this year of decidedly weird weather maybe they’re really trumpeting that Autumn is here.

Jonathan’s a champion….. and Sarah reaches the play-offs

After weeks of rain, the sun finally came out so everyone was in a party mood for the village’s 14^th July celebrations.

Being a small village of around 200 people, the day’s events are far from elaborate and hardly vary from year to year, but this simplicity, and the opportunity the activities present for meeting old and new friends makes them very enjoyable.

Everything starts at 11.00 with a brief ceremony at the war memorial, this year in the presence of some of the local pompiers in their ceremonial uniforms complete with silver helmets as well as the marching band from the next village. This was followed by kir and brioche in the village hall after which all the sensible French people retire for a leisurely family lunch. We, on the other hand, went for a bike ride.

The main activities start in the late afternoon – fishing games and a merry-go-round for the children, a mobile rifle range and, of course a bar, for the adults. Most attention, though, focuses on the two skittles alleys, one run by members of the town council and the other by the sports and leisure committee. The former is free and everyone can have one attempt to win a prize. Mind you, there’s no ‘run’ as such on this one – it’s set up on the road so the rough surface and patches of gravel add an element of surprise to the trajectory of the rough wooden balls. The committee’s alley is more sophisticated – it has a reasonably smooth wooden run and a rickety metal chute down which the balls are returned for the next player’s turn. There’s a charge for playing skittles on this one with the euros not used for the attractive prizes going into the sports and leisure funds.

Jonathan spent quite a long time studying tactics before attempting either of the runs himself. ‘Make your balls go diagonally’ he told me after watching one villager powering his shots arrow-straight along the wooden run and right between the skittles, ‘that way you’re more likely to knock down several with one ball’. As anyone who’s ever seen me play skittles at the Elephant and Castle will know, this sounds remarkably hopeful, so I was very surprised when towards the end of the afternoon one of the village councillors asked me to have another go at the ‘free’ alley. It turns out I was in the ladies’ third place playoffs! I got through the first round but inevitably got beaten by Mme Hargé who has much more experience!

Jonathan was more successful – he won the men’s third place play-offs at the more sophisticated alley and he’s now the proud owner of an electric circular saw. He’s very happy he came third because he wanted the saw far more than an electric coolbox or a coffee machine which were the first and second prizes. He even got into the local paper with his fellow-winners, Francois (whose wife knocked me out) and Michel.

After all this excitement there was still the lantern procession to the fireworks to look forward to but there was enough time before it got dark for something to eat from the barbeque accompanied by champagne served in what looked like overgrown shot glasses at 2 Euros a go.

It was a balmy evening so it was inevitable that we returned to the outdoor bar after the fireworks. As we sipped more of that rather good Champagne we ruminated with Monique and Bernard; the English have their fireworks in November when they celebrate a revolution thwarted and a monarch safe and sound and the French celebrate the reverse at a much better time of the year. What does that say about our two great nations? And isn’t it a shame that there’s no longer a bar in the village!