Soar-Dream-France

After the Fête-Not Just a Guest

The Saturday night sun set behind the Mairie on our first fête evening in Cadrieu. The colored lights came on, the dj music began, and I helped close down my post after selling and then reclaiming Cadrieu Gobelets.

This is my seventh summer of living here and attending our village fêtes. Each year I'd offer to help. Last year, I helped setting up tables and cleaning up after the last event of the season. This year, I actually had an assignment-selling Cadrieu Gobelets with Greg. We had some fun. I could go on and on about the food, the music, good friends, dancing my little heart out, and yes...that was me who tumbled into the shrubs when I was helping dismantle a few tables at the end of the evening. You could say I had too much fun! But most of all, I enjoyed: working, having a post, getting to know our other worker bees and speaking French. This is home. I belong here. I'm not just a guest anymore.

Everyone who worked had a straw hat. This year's cups were green. And, I was also pleased to have been able to help a gang of gals in the village make these pretty lavender sachets! Wonderful souvenirs! Wonderful memories!

Flowering on Two Continents

My roses have spoiled me this summer. The Chatette just doesn't feel complete unless I have roses in every room, and change them out regularly. They are prolific and breathtaking!  Me, I'm so spoiled. I know I'm my mother's daughter. Upon my return from the states, Mom oozed by phone on each call about her garden, especially her hydrangeas. I didn't realize that I was doing the same with my roses. Our refrains were the same: "Oh, you should see my...they're just so pretty!" I should explain that these calls are always on speaker phone. Then there's Dad who says: "Laury, you sound just like your mother!" And, he's right.

Great Balls of Fire

These dancing diamonds from the other morning surprised me when they grew into  a great ball of fire! I love the tiny sparklers, but that big ball highlights the boat and the river slip so nicely. Today is a typical "Day After the Fête" for me. How wonderful to have views like these to keep me company when all I want to do is snuggle into my chair with a good book. Happy Sunday!

L'Huile de Lavande du Lot

Last summer it was pastry paper mache covered, yogurt pot, votive candles. This summer it's rose petal-mint body scrub and lavender oil.

Even though I lost 2 of my biggest lavenders in the winter freeze, I still had enough to put it to good use. It's been easy and fun. The biggest challenge has been finding the containers. You need a solid, air tight container, where no light can enter so you can infuse the lavender into the oil, and then tiny pretty containers for the finished product. I used sunflower oil in the red container above, and added the sprigs of lavender from my roadside and traintrack lavenders. It needs to sit in a cool dark place for at least a week and then you can begin to check on the strength of the aroma. It's easy...stronger...more lavender. I exchanged the lavender for fresh 3 more times.

I went into my stash of hotel and small sample bottles, and discovered that they are perfect when you can get the lids off and remove the plastic product descriptions. It takes a little time to get the oil from the red container into the bottles with that plastic syringe, but it works perfectly and is well worth the effort. I duded them up with a pretty rope twine and made little photo product cards of my own to accompany my sweet little gifts of here and home. I'm now on the hunt for a larger, solid, airtight container and some tiny plastic bottles. So far, no success but I'm heading into Figeac soon and have a party store I want to check out. Wish me luck and Happy Friday!

 

 

Butterfly Giggles

Bring on the butterflies! Budlhea, lavender, and whatever it is I have in the hanging bag on the terrace are full of them. I've surrounded myself with these plants, extending my invitation to come hang out, surround the Chatette-the barn-the land, and just let me scream and giggle like a little girl. I used to scream and giggle for one, but now you can multiply that by hundreds of screams and little girl giggles! We are happy here...Butterfly Happiness!

 

What Do I Need?-What Have I Got?

A little while back, I sat on the barn bench behind the wagon and heard a huge crack. Since then, I've thought about buying a bench for back there. It's nice to have something to sit on, but nothing looked sturdy enough and I didn't really feel like spending the money. Then, this piece of wood or wood beam spoke to me when I was upstairs in the barn varnishing the loft doors. I was able to push it out and down from the loft. It appeared to be perfect for a bench of some kind. Next, what could I use to lift it and stabilize it? Ah, empty varnish cans! I had two that I experimented with. Another is about to be empty and I have a plan! I'll share the finished project with you soon!

Putting it Out There-Loves Shared

Over the years I've often said: "Wouldn't it be wonderful if...?" And, whatever was behind the "if" happened or appeared. The first time I was sitting on the train track wall behind the terrace and I said: "It would be really nice if there were stairs here." Et Voila! I mentioned it to my friend Keith, who immediately instructed me to go down to the tunnel and say: "It would be really nice if the treasure were here." When I was getting ready to buy the barn back in 2010. I'd already said it would be really wonderful if the dollar were stronger around the time I bought the barn. Et, voila...the exchange rate dropped to around 1.24 and dropped my cost of the barn by a couple of thousand dollars. Recently, the refrain hasn't even been mentioned. I just say: "I'm thinking about getting a new camera"; or, "I'm thinking about getting a new pair of overalls". How wonderful is it when just a mention brings it on? I have Marina's camera gift, and now I discover that Niels is going to give me a pair of overalls from his collection! He'll be bringing them with him when he and Bodil come to visit at the end of August. Each are so much more than gifts to me...it's in the sharing of something we love that has brought us together as friends. Hmm...if I'm on a roll here: wouldn't it be wonderful if I could put a new roof on the barn?

 If you haven't figured it out already, Marina has provided again...that's Marina in the pocket of my overalls in our photo!

Montbrun Misses and Memories

Believe it or not, there are actually times when I am camera-less. I take off on my bike, feeling free, and sometimes pretending I'm Lance Armstrong! (Where would you put a camera in all that Lycra?) I often see things that I'd like to shoot, but instead just enjoy the ride and promise myself I'll come back to capture it another time. Over the weekend, I returned by bike to Montbrun and wandered back over the main road and down along the campgrounds.

Although I found most of my missed shots of previous trips, it was memories that pulled me to the river. During September of 2005, my brother Jim and his wife Joan came for a visit. Joan had gone off to paint, so Jim and I hopped on the bikes and headed up to Montbrun together. We huffed and puffed up to the Château, wandered around the cemetery, and then breezed down the hill, across the road, to the far edge of the campgrounds to sit by the river. With so little one on one quality time with siblings as we grow up, that riverside time was really special for me. We began to walk along the river and discovered a beautiful patch of dahlias in sizes and colors I'd never seen before.

I made a point to return to that spot on Sunday. I arrived to discover something new, (or at least something I didn't remember from that time 7 years ago) an alley of bamboo. The path was tiny, with bamboo on both sides that almost formed a bamboo tunnel. But at the end...voila-there they were.

 

 

Morning Has Broken

This morning broke in swathes of color that are beautiful any time, but particularly pretty and befitting of a Lotoise Sunday Morning. What I see just outside my windows continues to wow me. Even after ten years of this place in our lives, there's always something new and fresh to hang on to and appreciate...sometimes in each and every moment! 

Sharing Shrimp

Originally being New Orleans Girls, you'd have thought Dali and Sammie Cat and I would have shared shrimp long before we came to France. Never. I've always been a shrimp girl. It began for me with Thanksgiving shrimp cocktails at Nannies, then moved on to selling them on the side of the road on the West Bank with the x-husband of a graduate school friend of mine, and then years of boiling big pots of my own on Columbus Street with corn on the cob, potatoes, onions and lots of Zatarin's Crab Boil. It began for us our first Christmas here. I wanted shrimp and treated myself to some from the Carrefour that had already been boiled in the shells. I made my own cocktail sauce, (that my friends here have come to love and appreciate) and I was ready. As I began peeling the shrimp, I had Sam talking to me on the counter and Dali waiting patiently on the floor. It was Christmas, what the hay. I'd share little bits with them as I peeled. By dinner time I'd dip the big end in the sauce, take my bite and leave enough so Sam got the tail and Dal got a little bigger piece. It's become our shrimp sharing tradition...and not just at Christmas! If there's a shrimp in the house...it's shared! I might add, sharing doesn't extend to the red wine-even though Sam looks like she may have had a few in the photo! Happy Weekend!