Saturday 18 March 2017

LED Lightbulbs


A real light bulb fading into history
Ever since the European Union passed one of the silliest and patronising laws banning the manufacture and sale of “normal” lightbulbs, we have struggled with lights in our house. I’m all for energy saving - just ask Cees how I follow him round the house switching off lights and I had energy saving bulbs long, long before they were compulsory, but I had them where I wanted them and where they were “safe”.

It is totally unsafe to have a system of lighting that you have to wait up to 2 minutes (I kid you not for the ones in our living room) before you can enter a space safely and can actually see where you are.

We have been relying on hand-me downs from Cees’ daughter and the one or two precious bulbs we still have left, to use in places where light is actually needed instantly.

Emergency rations
Finally LED lights have come of age and are available and affordable and wow… it is still a joy to walk into our living room and flip the switch and hey presto there was light. But their price is not a rock-bottom, giveaway prices and our old energy saving lights are still working, so we have only slowly started the replacement process.

One of  the recently removed light bulbs
This process was given a big boost last week when a money-off voucher arrived for our local DIY shop, finally we could replace the lights in the kitchen cum dining room.

At that moment we discovered another reason that you shouldn’t use these horrible energy-saving lights – wasps! We found a wasp’s nest in each of the four energy-saving light bulbs and none in the two proper light bulbs. Not only could we have been stung by these angry beasties, but those nests could have caught fire.

All four had the same problem
We are now "real light bulbs-less" in the house, and almost "energy-saving light bulb-less". I’ll keep the real ones for posterity, they might be worth some money in a few years but those ghastly things are going in the bin, it was almost worth voting Brexit to get rid of them – I said almost...



Saturday 11 March 2017

Discovering a New Restaurant in Cluny

Well it isn’t really a new discovery, we have seen this restaurant many times before, it is a pizza joint, just “the wrong side” of the market square, with a rather tatty terrace that projects into the road making driving up the main street a little tricky.

Now doesn’t that sound like a good recommendation of a restaurant? I think that explains why we had never been. For whatever reason (mainly because all our favourite restaurants were shut for their holidays) we decided to give it a go last weekend.

We arrived at La Calbrese at 12.00 and the place was empty – not a good sign I thought. The waiters were very friendly and we were shown to a nice table. The restaurant itself was very clean, modern and roomy; it had a really nice atmosphere about it.

Quick snap before the hoards of eaters turned up.
The menu looked interesting, a bit more than just pizzas and pasta, which is more than you can say for most French restaurants of this genre. We were so engrossed in the menu that we didn’t spot the other hungry lunchtime guests arriving and by the time we had made our choice, we looked up to find the restaurant was packed.

The lasagne I ordered came with salad at a price way below the competition in town and Cees’ spaghetti bolognaise looked very good as well. Both of us were very impressed with the quality of what we received. The pasta was al-dente, the balance between the pasta and sauce was just right, the parmesan was freshly grated, the wine was very good - in fact I can’t fault anything about the place.

Doesn't look worth the effort, but it is.
I am so glad we finally tried it, but I do have some reservations about recommending it to others, if too many more people start going there, we won’t be able to get in! They were turning people away before half past 12 which shows just how wrong our earlier impressions had been.

Summary - this is an absolute bijou of a restaurant, we will certainly be going back and we will try their other main meals next time, to see if they live up to the high standard they have set.


Saturday 4 March 2017

The Royal Monastery of Brou

Stunning roof tiles
Last week’s visit into the Bresse to see the cattle market allowed us to revisit one of the most impressive Gothic sites in this area - the monastery at Brou just outside Bourg-en-Bresse. Our first visit to this place was when we stayed on a camping à la ferme near Villefranche, which must have been 15 or more years ago, back in the days when we only dreamed of doing what we now do. Although we have visited it since, it is not one of our regular haunts. We were definitely not disappointed with this visit and we were both left wondering why we don’t come out this way more often, it’s less than an hour from home and well worth the detour.

The choir and the beautiful stained glass windows
The church is exquisitely decorated and is a perfect textbook example of Flamboyant Gothic. Amazingly the whole place was built in a record time of less than 20 years, but sadly the commissioner (Margaret of Austria) died in Belgium three months before it was completed and she never saw the buildings herself even though her remains are interred there. The monastery parts (three cloisters and surrounding buildings) are impressive in their size and decoration, and the roof is really something to behold. It is all a big difference to the simple style Romanesque style we are so used to visiting around here.

Bizarre detail of the back of a choir chair
This place is really well worth all the Michelin stars it gets and as a bonus, the entry ticket gives you a reduced price entry to the Abbey in Cluny – having said that, I think we’ll stick to the free Sunday visits during the winter period, which of course less fortunate visitors can’t do.

This was on a writing desk in one of the nuns cells..
After all that walking and absorbing the culture we were in need of some refreshment and the icing on the cake of the day was the array of restaurants directly opposite the church. They weren’t there when we first visited as I can remember spending hours, on a miserable Sunday, looking for something, looking for anything, to eat. All the restaurants looked good but we plumped for La Duchesse de Savoie which was superb value for money, excellent food and packed by 12.00 which is always a good sign. So we finished our day out in the Bresse with that excellent lunch.

What better way can you imagine to spend a leisurely day?



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