Sunday 29 October 2017

Dancing Cabbage

Tartiflette photo from www.cuisineaz.com
After the long warm evenings of summer have passed, we move into a different time of year where activities are very different as well. Instead of long BBQ evenings with friends, other outdoor activities or concerts in the glorious Romaesque churches that abound here, we move into the season of club events, annual general meetings, livened up with wine and food at the end, “salons”, exhibitions and fundraising dinners.

At our taichi AGM we managed to have about 15 minutes of discussion and voting and then 2 hours worth of wine, food and dancing, that seems to be the right balance to me.

Choucroute photo from www.seriouseats.com
The Tourist Office in St-Gengoux-le-National on the other hand had an extraordinary GM to discuss its future, now that the local government has taken over control of the office. A very lively, but mostly off-topic, debate was had by all then the vote was cast. Contrary to northern European logic, the majority voted to merge with another association and to do something that was not entirely clear to me, but if they are happy that way, so be it. All the arguing and discussions took over 2 hours which didn’t leave us an enormous amount of time to enjoy the very good wine on offer and to have farewell chats with those we have worked with over the last 10 or so years.

After the “salon” of Zen in Sennecey-le-Grand and “salon” of well being in Cluny there was an exhibition of the Cluny photo club which was of a very high standard. The club was touting for new members, so we signed up and have started going to their meetings. We missed out on the light painting night and the mushroom excursion but we are looking forward to next club outings to practise a bit of photography with the group.

Aligot photo from www.marieclaire.fr
And last but not least there are numerous dinners offering autumn/winter delights such as tartiflette which is potatoes cooked in the oven with lardons and onions topped off with Reblochon a special cheese from the French Alps (Savoy) region baked to crispy perfection, aligot an Auvergne delight of melted Tomme (a cheese from the Auvergne), butter, cream and garlic blended into mashed potato, a gooey, elasticy mix of yum often served with just bread, but you can also serve it with sausages. Not to mention Boeuf Bourginon not always that well done and rather a cliché, but what the heck it’s named after our region. Often these meals are an excuse to eat and drink well into the night with the obligatory dancing in between courses so that you do not feel as though you are just pigging out.


Dancing choucroute available in Cluny?
But the best event we have seen advertised this year is the Cluny rugby club’s annual choucroute evening - choucroute being a speciality from the Alsace of sauerkraut topped with heaps and heaps of sausages and chunks of gammon and other meats.

I have a slight suspicion that someone has reworded the poster this year making it sound a little more special than normal. It tickled my sense of humour and if it were to be true, it would be almost worth the 18 Euros to see the choucroute dancing to the Madison - I suspect though that the lump of acidic, fermented cabbage will stubbornly sit on the plate, so I don’t think I’ll be going.




Monday 23 October 2017

Return to blogging

I haven’t blogged for, what seems to be, an absolute age, I guess I was all blogged out there for a while. Spring turned into a glorious summer, one of the best and driest since we have been here and now, even though the temperature is still tipping 20 degrees, autumn is most definitely in full swing.


It doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy this summer, our days and evenings have been packed with all the usual summer stuff, picnics, visiting the sites to see (eternal tourists that we are) and of course many, many quite superb concerts. All of that will give me loads to write about in the coming weeks of course.

So what are we up to at the moment? With this splendid autumn weather, cool mornings and warm afternoons, we have had a great chance to get on top of some big garden jobs. Cees has been clearing brambles – he is a man with a mission at the moment and I have managed to get ahead with trimming hedges and clearing the lower reed bed which is always a huge task that normally gets left until it is too late. So for once in a long time, our garden is looking very neat indeed. But mostly we have been enjoying going out and about, photographing the tremendous colours that this season brings, taking the opportunity to practise taichi in the garden before it gets too cold to be enjoyable and just generally enjoying life the universe and everything.

The gites are wrapped up for the winter now and the campsite is closed – more on that another time – and the tourists are fewer on the roads, so we are slipping into winter mode, wood fires and mulled wine aah la vie est belle!


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