Foraging - free food from nature!

A few months ago, Cathy suggested that we sign up to a short foraging course at Woods Mill, near Henfield. It's the HQ of the Sussex Wildlife Trust yet I'd never been there, despite it being only 20 minutes from home. 

Today was the day. Our tutors for the day were Millie and Mark, both avid foragers. Millie had also studied herbalism and nutritional therapy and was particularly interested in the medicinal side of plants. Mark is a qualified "bushcraft"instructor. The 8 participants met in the small main building and we started with a a cup of herbal tea, made from herbs dried over the winter by Millie - dandelion, nettle and cleavers - delicious. 

We then had a talk on foraging generally, the rules and environmental concerns and, of course, a warning not to pick anything you're not absolutely sure about! The consequences of getting it wrong can be fatal. 

So - the rules. You can't pick anything from a designated National Nature Reserve or from an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) unless you have permission. You can't pick from private land without the permission of the landowner (though of course, if you're on private land, you're already trespassing!) Foraging is covered by the Theft Act and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

The environmental impact - you shouldn't just help yourself to armfuls of plants just because they're there in front of you. A general rule of thumb is to take no more than 20% of the leaves from any one plant. Some plants can only withstand light "grazing" - perhaps 5% of the plant. 

The dangers - many and varied. For example, if you pick from near water, you could pick up the "liver fluke parasite" which lives in cattle and other grazing mammals. So if there are cows or sheep around who drink from the river/stream/pond, give it a miss. Another lovely possibility is Weil's Disease - passed on through the urine of rats, cattle and pigs. Again, if infected urine is present in or around the area and you have any cuts on your skin, it can get into your system. A non-animal related problem is "phytophotodermatitis". Some plants can leave a substance on the skin which, when the sun hits it, causes severe blistering. Another good reason to be careful when picking anything with your bare hands. Bizarrely, some of the plants which cause the worst blistering topically on the skin are incredibly beneficial when ingested. 

So - what can you pick? Well, "The Four F's" - foliage, fruit, flowers, fungi. This course concentrated on foliage, mainly because of the time of year. Fruit and flowers are covered on different courses and fungi-picking is a very specialised area. 

After the talk, it was time to venture out into the April sunshine (yes, sunshine finally happened in the UK!). Almost as soon as we walked out of the door, Mark spotted our first few edible specimens and for the next hour, we discovered just how much food is literally right there under our feet and our noses. Apologies for the state of the pictures, I only had my phone with me:

Hawthorn - eating the baby leaves early in the season is best but the berries can be dried. Great for the heart and the circulation: 

Cleavers - they have tiny hooks so if you throw them against your clothing, they'll stick! Must be cooked before eating. Good lymphatic system cleanser:

Daisy leaves - light flavour, good in salads:

Plantain (not the exotic fruit) - the ribbing pattern under the leaves tells you you have the right plant. It can grow on very compacted soil and it's sometimes the only plant on what otherwise appears to be dead ground. It can draw out toxins so if you have an insect bite or something with pus (mmm, lovely), chew up a leaf to soften it and then wrap it around the problem area:

Ox-eye daisy:

Yarrow:

Wild chives - pungent and very tasty:

Ground elder - a cross between a herb and a vegetable. Very tasty:

Meadowsweet - only to be picked in small quantities as it can't withstand over-grazing:

Bitter cress - a little like mustard and cress. Peppery flavour. Voracious grower so OK to pick quite a lot. Best picked with small scissors:

Ground ivy - part of the mint family but tastes a little more bitter:

Common sorrel - tiny leaves at this time of year (resembles dock leaves). Fascinating taste - almost like apple skin:

The main edible plants of the day were wild garlic and nettles. I think we all know what nettles look like so I didn't bother photographing them. They can be picked with bare hands but it's not the most comfortable thing in the world. Always pick nettles before they flower. Leaves with purple tinges can be very bitter and older leaves can damage the kidneys. There's some evidence that nettle stings can be good for rheumatism because the sting brings blood to the affected area. Once upon a time, being covered in nettles was a common medical treatment. April is the best month to pick them when they are young and tender. It is possible to eat them raw - rub the leaf hard between the fingers to destroy the little hairs which cause the stinging sensation and you can then pop them in your mouth. However, they're probably better either cooked or mixed raw with other foods. 

We didn't see wild garlic during our walk but the guides had picked a huge basket of it beforehand. It is a fantastic food to forage though - incredible garlic flavour so if you can find it, get some. Here's what you're looking for:

And now for the warnings! Hogweed is one of the plants which can cause phytophotodermatitis so avoid this:

Many plants of the carrot family (umbelifferae) must not be eaten. Avoid anything which looks like those fluffy carrot tops you occasionally see still attached to carrots when you buy them. The family includes cow parsley, wild chervil but, surprisingly, cumin, coriander and dill. However, the main issue with this family is that it includes hemlock which is a poison. Here is hemlock water dropwort and yes, it will kill you:

Wild arum absolutely must not be eaten . It can be confused with sorrel (when sorrel has bigger leaves) so be very careful. If it looks like this, don't pick it:

So those were our plants for the day! We headed back to the classroom/impromptu kitchen with our basket of goodies and started making lunch. Mark was in charge of nettle pakoras - ridiculously simple: a colander full of washed nettles, roughly chopped, 100g of gram (chickpea flour), a spoon of baking powder, a chopped onion and some of the wild garlic, all mixed together and shallow fried. Delicious. Millie made wild garlic pesto - two good handfuls of wild garlic (which I happily chopped), a small amount of chopped nettle, crushed pine kernels, olive oil and parmesan. All simply mashed together in a pestle and mortar and served raw with some plain crackers. Divine!

Interesting fact (I hope I get this right or Cathy will have words): some plants like spinach or rhubarb contain oxalic acid. This acid can hinder the absorption of the calcium which is also contained in the plant. However, this problem can be overcome in a very handy way. If you combine the foodstuff with another source of calcium, the acid doesn't affect the calcium in that food. So what do we eat with rhubarb? Yup - custard! Generally made with milk. And with spinach? Indeed - cheese. So whether we know it or not, we're combining the right foods when we have a bowl of rhubarb and custard or a lovely spinach and feta salad.

All in all, it was a fascinating three hours and I'm seriously contemplating signing up for the autumn foraging course too. 

Easter Egg Hunt 2013

I woke up this morning to find this cryptic message on the bathroom mirror:

Which led me to this one:

So I did:

Off to the living room with me:

I sat down but this is all I could see ...

So I stood up and ...

Aha! Once rescued, this is what it looked like:

Bet it doesn't look like that for long.

Thanks Dade!

More moments in Madrid

I finally made it back for a long weekend in Madrid, after nearly 15 months away. Unlike my last trip, when I was picking up my belongings from my time living there, this trip was fun and relaxation all the way. 

Once I'd sorted myself out at my hostal on Friday afternoon, I met up with Julie, my first good friend when I arrived there in 2009  - we hit the Mercado San Miguel for the early part of the evening. We chatted away over far too many vermut grifos. It was good to catch up and it was particularly interesting to hear about how much Madrid has changed since I left, but especially in the last year since the recession really hit. 

After the multiple vermuts with Julie, I went on to meet Eve, my first and best flatmate when I lived on Banana Street! She took me to a secret bar, on the sixth floor of what appears to be a residential building. A couple of beers and a huge plate of asparagus and pimientos al padron followed, accompanied by lots and lots of chat! 

I was staying at my regular haunt, a hostal at the top of Calle de la Montera (commonly known as Prostitute Street) and once back there, around 1am, I flung the windows of my sixth floor room open and fell asleep to the sounds of late-night/early morning Madrid. It's weird that the sounds of the occasional bus and a few drunkards going past my flat at home drive me insane, yet I can sleep in Madrid with dozens of people chatting, singing and generally having fun in the street outside, and with the non-stop traffic on Gran Via just feet away. 

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny and after meeting up with Julie for a miniature breakfast, it was time for Cathy to arrive and join me. Once she was settled in to the hostal, we went out for lunch at FrescCo, still an absolute bargain "Eat As Much As You Like (with a free drink) for €10.95". Stuffed, we headed down towards Atocha train station, as I'd discovered Cathy had never seen the rainforest and terrapin pool in there! After gazing at the terrapins and booking our train to Segovia for Sunday, we went to La Caixa Forum where we saw no less than three exhibitions. One was, as Cathy put it, "arty bollocks", the second was an educational display about food shortages around the world, and the third was a somewhat weird exhibition of various real and fictitious circus and voodoo-type icons. We spotted a poster announcing that the 2013 Carnaval celebrations were due to start that day with a parade from Plaza Mayor to Cibeles. 7pm found us on Calle de Sevilla with several thousand other people awaiting the arrival of the parade. It was pretty spectacular - floats, music, fire-breathers, dancers and a gigantic inflatable dinosaur. We had to battle our way through the crowds back across Sol to meet Eve again in the evening, before heading off for a pre-dinner drink at Bar Ave Fenix (the old location of the famous Friday night English-practice meet-up). Then it was time for dinner at La Isla del Tesoro - possible the loveliest vegetarian restaurant I've been to anywhere in the world! I'd forgotten how tasty the (free) pre-starter of chickpeas, caramelised onions and mayo with a variety of home-made bread was. We shared mixed croquetas and then enjoyed an Energy Wok, a Barley Beach and a Jungle Burger! We walked off our delicious meal by wandering to Casa Patas, a bar recommended by Eve. Rather disconcertingly for a vegetarian, we were sat directly under a mass of jamon! It regularly hosts traditional bands and flamenco, though there was nothing on while we were there - initially I thought we might be just too early as it was barely midnight when we arrived, but they were putting the chairs on the tables when we left after two beers and two gigantic Drambuies - it was fun ordering those as it's clearly not something the barman (Oscar) had been asked for again and none of us could work out how on earth it would be pronounced in Spanish! How could I forget how enormous Spanish shots are! It had been another fabulous evening of chat, food and drink. 

After a long and tiring day and perhaps just a little too much alcohol, it was a bit of a struggle to get up Sunday morning but we had train tickets to Segovia booked and had to get up to the north part of the city to catch the train from Estacion Chamartin. We made it with a few minutes to spare, grabbed another morning-after-repair tortilla baguette and headed to the train. I had believed my guidebook which said it takes 90-120 minutes to get to Segovia by train. However, that guidebook was written before the "AV" (Avant) trains were brought in. These are the high-speed trains and it turned out our journey took less than half an hour! The train station really is in the middle of nowhere and it takes another 20 minutes on a bus to actually get to the town but it's great to be dropped off directly under the famous aqueduct. Segovia is a rather weird city - the ancient part is being subsumed on all sides by new buildings, and not attractive ones at that. We spent the day wandering the cobbled winding streets, climbing the ancient city walls, marvelling at the height of the cathedral and watching yet another Carnaval parade in a different Plaza Mayor! We also listened to Spain's answer to The Flying Pickets - Tutto Voce - who were great. Eight male a capella singers, with a guy with a voice so low it was like the beginnings of an earthquake. We caught them rehearsing when we first arrived and then watched their main performance after the parade. It was clear from a lyrics sheet that was handed out and from the reaction of the audience that many of the lyrics were satirical. The Segovia Carnaval has a different theme every year - this year's was 1920s and prohibition. The costumes relating to that theme were mixed up with classic carnival outfits, worthy of a Venetian masked ball. During the stage show it started to snow but it wasn't to last. After more wandering around the Jewish Quarter, we treated ourselves to yet more croquetas and a white bean and egg mix at a local bar with pretensions (!) before heading back to take a closer look at the aqueduct. Even though I had been there before, I had honestly forgotten what an incredible feat of engineering the aqueduct actually is. We climbed the wide shallow stairs up the walls almost at the top of it, and marvelled at how something so tall and long could be held together by, well, nothing. There is no cement or anything similar - the blocks are held together solely by their own pressure. Cathy had a go at pushing it over but, surprisingly, without success! Another high-speed train whisked us back to Madrid, we walked some of the way back, past the area where I used to live, which has barely changed, but then the rain set in and we hopped on the Metro back to the hostal. We treated ourselves to a little siesta before heading off to Eve and Pedro's place, as they had kindly invited us to come for dinner. We had a lovely evening - Eve had made absolutely delicious food, we had a tour of their cute flat, chatted about nonsense as usual, I caught up with Pedro (again, one of my first friends when I arrived in Madrid) and generally put the world to rights! The Metro carried us back to our cosy hostal room for our final night. 

We allowed ourselves a bit of a lie-in on Monday morning as we had to check out but we then had the whole day ahead of us before flying home. We dumped our bags behind reception, paid our bill and headed to Chocolateria San Gines for an obligatory breakfast of chocolate and churros. Delicious, of course, but very filling and just a little sickly! Then it was another trip to the Mercado San Miguel for a wander round the food stalls. I managed to forget to buy the lovely veggie croquetas though. From there, we headed into the little back streets behind the market to try and find the Convent de las Carboneras - this is a "closed" convent (the nuns have no actual contact with the outside world) but in order to raise money, they make cakes and biscuits which they sell to the public via a rotating drum system. We stood in the right square, not quite sure which building we needed, when a smiley homeless lady came up to us saying "Dulces?" ("Sweet things?") We said yes and she led us to the building we were actually standing next to and rang a bell on the wall. When a voice answered, she said "Dos señoras aqui" ("Two women here") and the door opened. We followed signs to the "Torn" down two dark corridors and across a courtyard. In a darkened lobby we found the dark wood of a revolving drum with a price list next to it. A disembodied voice then reiterated the cakes, the amounts and the prices. We went for half a kilo of small almond cakes for €9. We put our money on the wooden tray and then it was whisked away on the revolving drum, replaced by our box of cakes! (If you click on the link above, you can see pictures of the whole procedure.) We thanked the invisible nun and off we went. When we exited back into the daylight, the homeless lady was waiting for us, looking very pleased with herself! We thanked her and offered her some cakes but she shook her head and said she would rather have money! Honest, if nothing else. We gave her a few Euros and a couple of little cakes anyway. 

At this point, my sense of direction which had been standing me in quite good stead up until now, completely deserted me and I led us off in totally the wrong direction. We ended up walking to Lavapies which I couldn't have found if I wanted to, before I gave in and followed the map. From there, we planned to have a quick drink in Circulo de Bellas Artes café which had been Debbie's regular haunt when we lived there. The main door was closed due to some kind of incident with a falling sign and when we got to the alternative door we found a sign saying that there was an entrance fee of €1 just to get into the café. In all honesty, we weren't that bothered so we left again! We went back to Cibeles to check on the times of the newly-discovered airport bus (thanks Julie). Since we were right outside the Correos (main post office) we went into the incredibly impressive building to get stamps for our postcards. No physical stamps any more, apparently. We handed over our money and postcards and the lady used an ink stamp on them. Saves paper, I guess. From there, we headed back to the centre and to Bar La Catedral which I had always planned to visit. It was eventually time for a spot of lunch so we went to El Buscon, a regular haunt when I lived there. It had been tarted up a bit but was still busy and had a great buzz. The waiter was seemingly on his own, dealing with a full room of diners but he was great - he whizzed around, smiling constantly, putting up with my terrible Spanish and practicing his English on us and, as the afternoon went on, started to pinch Cathy's cheek each time he passed the table! The most impressive thing was that as a result of one of our questions, he popped back to the table and said "Do you not eat meat?" We confirmed that we didn't and he brought us a veggie tapas (everyone else seemed to have bread and sausage). We both had an absolutely delicious vegetable soup to start, then I had my favourite dish when I regularly ate there - huevos rotos con patatas fritas (in my case, sin chistora). Yes, it's egg and chips but yet somehow, it's not! Our attempts to leave were thwarted by the fact that every time we asked the smiley waiter for the bill, he pinched Cathy's cheek, stroked my chin and brought us two free shots, but no bill! We eventually managed to pay and headed to Plaza Mayor for a last little tourist bit! Finally, we had to admit it was time to leave, retrieved our luggage from the hostal and walked down to Cibeles  for the airport bus. For the second time in one trip, we had completely misunderstood/misread travel time and a trip which we thought would take 50 minutes actually only took 15. We were at the airport extremely early but managed to kill time till our flight home.

It was a really lovely weekend with great company, lots of food and drink, and I remembered once more just why I loved living there! 

I'm sure I'll be back again soon. 

A selection of my photos can be found HERE.

And relax - a glorious spa day!

For Christmas 2012, Cathy and I bought each other a spa day experience at the CityPoint Club, London, in the heart of The City.

When January 21st finally rolled around, it didn't have the most auspicious start. After a weekend of snow, the trains were completely messed up on Monday with delays and cancellations galore. Our departure time (and station) changed several times until finally we found ourselves London-bound, albeit to a different station from the one we'd booked for.

Fate turned out to be kind though, as arriving at London Bridge meant a far shorter journey to Moorgate on the tube than would have been the case from Victoria. Very surprisingly, we arrived at the spa only half an hour after we were meant to be there. Thankfully, they had picked up my earlier answerphone message explaining our travel problems and had scheduled our treatments for later in the afternoon. 

Once the formalities were done (medical waivers, registration forms), we were given a tour of the facilities - very impressive. There's a 20m swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, ice-cold plunge pool, several relaxation areas (including one darkened room with Zero Gravity massage chairs), and a state-of-the-art gym. We had nearly three hours before our treatments so off we went to the huge changing room to don our cossies. 

Between us, we've been to a fair few spas but this one was definitely a cut above the rest. Being in the heart of the City of London means that they have some rather well-off members and the place reeked of money, yet managed to remain friendly and unpretentious. 

Just to prove that we're possibly rather easily pleased, the main thing that set this apart from others was the fact that you weren't just given a robe, towel and flip-flops (not those silly little fabric slippers you get at some), and expected to use them all day. In each area of the spa was a wall filled to overflowing with fresh white towels. Whenever you wanted a clean one, you just ditched yours in one of the many towel drop bins and grabbed a new one. There was a whole rack of fresh robes in the changing rooms too. 

Anyway, having got over the shock of the towel situation, we headed first into the darkened relaxation room, rather fascinated by the idea of a Zero Gravity massage chair. The sign on the door says "Quiet please - you are entering a relaxation area". Fortunately, there was no-one else in there as the next 15 minutes was filled with the sound of our giggling as we used the remote control to move the chair into every position between upright and fully reclined, whilst playing with the other buttons to see what bizarre combinations of vibration and massage we could come up with. It's hard to describe the sensation of being tipped backwards while your legrest vibrates and the back of the chair squeezes you round the ribs, hips and shoulders with a sometimes vice-like grip. It was odd but lovely. There are seven massage chairs in the room, positioned facing a very large tropical fish tank and it's easy to see why a harassed City worker would pop in here for half an hour, lean back, get a mini-massage and just watch the fish. It was relaxing enough for me and I don't pretend to have a stressful job! 

We could not, sadly, stay in there all day so for the next couple of hours we chopped and changed between the pool, the jacuzzi, the sauna and the steam room, and Cathy did half an hour in the gym. The sauna is, no doubt, fantastic but it was too hot for both of us. Neither of us are fans of dry heat and we managed about three minutes in there before bailing. Happy though I was not to use the gym, I had every intention of using everything else on offer so I headed with some trepidation to the plunge pool. It wasn't very large in diameter nor very deep (1.3m) so it wasn't possible to do a proper plunge as you're meant to, but I did manage to lower myself rather gingerly into the ice-cold water until my shoulders were under, then after a few seconds I got out again rather a lot faster! I can assure you that was bracing enough. The steam room is very lovely. Perfect temperature, perfect amount of steam, twinkly colour-changing lights in the ceiling and the steam vent is positioned in a corner rather than somewhere under the seat as is so often the case in other spas. I have had plenty of experiences of wondering where the steam vent is, only to suddenly find the backs of my legs on fire as a blast of hot steam emanates from under the seat. No such unpleasantness here! The jacuzzi is a bubbling cauldron of lovely warm water with plenty of room and we were the only people in it most of the time. We took no heed of the "10 minutes maximum" sign and simply kept switching it back on whenever it automatically cut off. The only part which could have been improved was the pool. It's 20m long but is divided permanently into 4 lanes, none of which appeared to be designed for those of us who like to bob about a bit, rather than doing any serious swimming. When we first headed to it, it was effectively full. There were two people in each lane, swimming length after length and all looking very serious about it. We did get in there later in the day, when one lane was free and we splashed about looking distinctly inelegant, and playing silly games with the floats. Rather aptly, the lane we were in had a sign at one end saying "Slow swimmers lane"! 

3pm rolled around and it was time for the proper pampering to begin. Our package included a 30-minute neck, shoulder and back massage and a 30-minute facial each. The treatment rooms match the rest of the place in terms of quality. Well sound-proofed, candlelit, tinkly massage music and wonderfully fragrant. But the best things (apart from the actual treatment) are the heated underblanket and duvet on the massage table! Sliding under a thick warm duvet and relaxing for 5 minutes before the massage began was a gorgeous start. The next hour passed in a haze of relaxing loveliness. My masseuse, Kristal, was really good, using just the right amount of pressure and concentrating on the areas that I had told her got very tense and painful. The facial seemed to involve about half a dozen different oils, creams and potions going on and gently being wiped off but the end result was soft, glowing skin, the likes of which I haven't seen in the mirror for about ten years! 

We had time for another quick massage chair stint and a gaze at the fish before the final part of our experience (and, if we're honest, the reason we booked this package at this spa in preference to any other) - the Prosecco Afternoon Tea! Given that we were there on a discount Travelzoo package, they could have been forgiven for fobbing us off with a glass of cava and a Waitrose scone each. But no! Two champagne flutes of proper champagne came first, followed by a plate of cheese salad sandwiches, egg mayo sandwiches on delicious caraway bread, grapes, pineapple slices and four fruit scones, with strawberry jam and a huge dollop of clotted cream on the side. What a way to instantly replace all those toxins we'd spent the rest of the day getting rid of! 

Forty-five minutes later, very full and very relaxed it was time to head for the changing rooms and get ready to go back to the real world. The shower cubicles are huge, the water set to the perfect temperature and each cubicle has full bottles of luxurious shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. The changing rooms even hold little extras - a whole room of mirrors and dressing-room type stools, with numerous hairdryers, hair straighteners and stacks of mousse, gel, hairspray, deodorant, cotton wool balls all laid on. The number of staff constantly (but inconspicuously) going around replenishing everything, removing used towels, straightening the relaxation couches etc, means that the place always looks and feels as if it has just opened for the day. 

And then it was 5.30 - time to wave goodbye and head back out into the hustle and bustle of London. It felt like a different world. 

5 days in rural France (in great detail!)

Saturday April 21st, 0515hrs - yup, in the morning! As usual, I got up wishing I'd gone to bed earlier but never mind. I had a holiday to look forward to. It was time to return to Magnac Laval and to Cathy's little house, Étoile de Mer. At 6am, we set off from Cathy's to our park-and-ride place 10 minutes from Stansted. It really is time somebody started flying to Limoges from a more convenient airport! Still, the journey to the airport and the flight itself were uneventful and before we knew it we had landed in grey, rainy Limoges. Cathy's lovely little Renault 4 (Renée) had been helpfully left in the car park by a friend so, after a slightly faltering start where we both managed to forget that the car had a choke which was needed to start her, we set off. After a stop for necessities from the supermarket, we got to the house. It had had a little facelift since the last time I saw it - brand new shutters upstairs and all the shutters and the front door had been given a coat of very lovely blue paint. We dumped our stuff then went for a wander round the village. First stop was unexpectedly l'Escapade, the local bar where, even though it was technically closed, we were allowed in to say hi to Tony and to watch a bit of the setup for the karaoke that night. We'd already made dinner plans but we promised to pop along later, thinking we could always dip out if our nerve failed!
The cute but very old-fashioned village supermarket had finally closed down due to a combination of the ill-health of the owner and the presence of a "proper" chain supermarket half a mile away. It had been replaced by Chez NouNou, a little café with a good selection of drinks, basic snacks, a TV and, most importantly, free WiFi.
In the evening we headed off to Restaurant La Gartempe, a 20 minute drive from the house. It's run by a lovely British couple - I should know both their names having been there three times now, but I can only remember that Rachel is the front-of-house half while her husband concocts gorgeousness in the kitchen. The food is always utterly scrumptious with a good vegetarian option. This evening's fare was sweetcorn and chickpea balls, followed by spinach and potato pie with salad. Despite being pretty full, I couldn't resist hot red fruits and ice cream. We'd had a long chat about the first round of the French elections which were due to take place the following day. Rachel is actually on the local council for La-Croix-sur-Gartempe but as a resident Brit, she can't vote in the regional or national elections.

And so we headed back to Magnac and to l'Escapade. It was packed and we nearly changed our minds but we're glad we didn't. It was a fantastic evening - everyone threw themselves into karaoke (including us), VAST quantities of wine were drunk, and we bumped into Jo, a girl we'd met there last August during another raucous drunken evening, and her new bloke, Mark. Although the bar was populated almost exclusively by Brits for this particular night, three brave older local guys came in, plonked themselves down at a table and, after watching proceedings for a while, attempted to join in despite clearly not knowing a single word of English. They seemed to do pretty well with Beatles numbers. One of the tables had a birthday group - the birthday girl herself, Elsie, turned 91 at midnight and she was presented with a huge cake. 91 or not, she was up and dancing with the rest of us! The bizarre highlight of the evening was one of the regulars disappearing out to the loo, only to return dressed very convincingly as Bob the Builder, which led to an odd karaoke version of the theme tune. Rather a lot of us knew all the lyrics, rather worryingly. At half midnight, we were finally prised out of the bar but the evening wasn't over. Jo had told us that there had been a rather strange man wandering the streets of the village late at night recently so she and Mark walked us the 50 yards back to the house. Seeing as there was plenty of booze in the house we all went in and carried on for a couple of hours. Drunken darts. Drunken Guess Who. Drunken everything. Jo and Mark left at 3am but then, instead of sensibly going to bed, we decided to go stargazing! We finally gave up at 3.45 am, nearly 24 hours after we'd got up.



Sunday 22nd April - I woke up at 11am feeling alarmingly well, all things considered. The less said about poor Cathy until about 4pm the better! We finally made it out of the house at 1.30, but only to stagger to Chez NouNou again. We slobbed on the sofas, drank coffee and hot chocolate, watched the Monte Carlo tennis final (well done, Nadal), managed some stodgy hangover food and then made it back to the house. It was still raining, as it had been pretty much since we arrived, so we started giving the house a spring clean. At 5.30 there was a break in the weather so we went out for a walk all round the village. Just as we were getting back, we noticed something scuttling along the gutter heading straight for the crossroads at the centre of the village. It was a tiny mole, and it was heading for certain death! Mad English animal lovers to the rescue. What a task it was! We tried stopping it with our hands (I can confirm they have rather sharp teeth!), with my coat, with our feet but no matter what we put in its way, its incredibly strong little nose and front feet managed to force through. In the end, Cathy emptied her tiny handbag out and we managed to get the squirmy, squeaky little bugger zipped up inside! We hurried to a nearby field which houses 4 horses and 3 donkeys and let him go. He only went about a foot before burrowing neatly down into the ground and vanishing! On the way back, we popped to the square to see if anything was happening at the Mairie (the Town Hall) at the end of the days' voting. We'd heard that the count of the ballot papers is frequently public and lo and behold, we could see lots of frantic counting and various locals watching. We were too embarrassed to go in and watch so we went back to the house, rustled up a chickpea stew, played a few very silly games but by 11pm we were trashed and crashed!

There's a mole in there, I promise.

Monday 23rd April - After 10 hours' sleep, we managed our obligatory croissants for breakfast from Mme Monediere at the boulangerie on the corner, and then went out for another rainy wander. After completing necessary practicalities at the Post Office and the bank, we visited Joelle, a lovely local lady who is very welcoming but incredibly hard to understand due to a combination of hardly any teeth and the fact that she makes no allowances for our ropey French. Still, between us, we managed a conversation about the election (including the rather spectacular results achieved by Marine le Pen of the National Front), the retirement age and rather inexplicably, the danger of older men falling off rooves (there may have been a translation problem here). Joelle's husband returned at one point and the chat became a little easier because he speaks much more slowly and clearly. As we were leaving, Joelle gave us five dinky little eggs from her chickens and we knew what we were having for dinner.
We drove to Le Dorat to meet Collette, a South African lady who lives out there and who had helped Cathy out by booking Renée in for her MOT, due to take place on Tuesday. We popped into my favourite church (yes, I'm an atheist but I'm still allowed to like the buildings!) and then on to La Petite Fontaine, a lovely café which is popular with Brits and French alike. In rather British fashion, I had a jacket potato with baked beans! When we left, it was still absolutely tipping it down but we decided not be put off. We grabbed the map and just headed for somewhere neither of us had been before - l'Isle Jourdain, about a 40 minute drive to the west. It turned out to be lovely. The main square is up on high, but you can then follow winding, narrow streets through the oldest part of the village right down to the river and the bridge across to the other side of the village. Halfway across the bridge we spotted two wrought-iron gates, chained, but along the overgrown driveway we could just about see a very rundown but absolutely massive house. Attached to the gates was a For Sale sign so we started to speculate on what it actually was and how much it might be on the market for.

Just upriver is a huge viaduct which can be reached on foot but just as we were contemplating taking a stroll up there, the heavens opened and we headed uphill as fast as we could back to the square. We stopped at a deserted café to warm up then grabbed the car and drove back through more torrential rain.  We read for a bit while more rain hammered down on the roof of the sun (!) terrace, then made a delicious omelette with the eggs from Joelle. We listened to music and played more silly games until bed.



Tuesday 24th April - What on earth was going on? We woke up to blue sky and sunshine. After a leisurely brekkie of croissants and Emmenthal we headed first to the reduced-price porcelain warehouse, where I got two sideplates for a stupidly low price (€4.25) and then on to our favourite tat shop, Ecogem, to buy cheap plasticky pointlessness. Then it was on to Bellac where we stopped for lunch at Madame Corbett's, a little sandwich shop run by a friendly Scottish lady. She was lovely but, no offence, not really the best at running a café despite saying she had been working as a waitress or similar for over 30 years. She got our drinks order wrong, we waited over 20 minutes for a simple panini (there were no other customers) and the arrival of 5 other customers practically finished her off. It will be interesting to see what it might be like in there in July and August - let's hope she takes on some staff. The food was good and excellent value though. It was time for Renée's MOT so we dropped her off at the testing station and went for a walk. Cathy was quite convinced that she would fail the MOT, the car is 21 years old, after all, and four years ago, there were a few "avises" - suggested work to be done, though not obligatory. Just as, rather unsurprisingly, it started to rain, we went back to see what the damage was. Hurrah - she had passed with absolutely no work needing to be done!
We drove to Collette's lovely house where we were happily assaulted by her two friendly dogs, and I was impressed by what she and her husband Ron have there. There is the main house they live in, then another little house behind it, a huge brick building where Ron has his forge and also a large barn. Their garden is beautifully kept and they have a few chickens - it's obviously the done thing! From there, we followed Collette to the house of the lady who will be looking after Renée until Cathy's next visit. Sue lives right next door to her estranged husband in a beautiful house in a tiny village. It used to be an apple orchard and there are still loads of apple trees although she doesn't harvest them any more. The place is up for sale at the moment but has been so for three years with no movement at all. The property market in France just isn't good at the moment. With Renée happily installed in the huge (but very dry) barn, Collette drove us back to Magnac for our final evening.

We went for another constitutional round the village, but in the reverse direction to our usual one, then back to the house for a huge dinner of pasta with lentil and vegetable sauce, most of a baguette and some proper "foreign crisps"! Then it was back to l'Escapade, this time to meet Alison and Tony. Alison looks after Cathy's house between visits and sorts it out before and after the other guests who stay there a few times a year. It was another fairly riotous evening with very entertaining chat, more wine and lots of laughter. In the end, we had to admit that our last evening was over and we headed out for one more attempt at meteor-spotting (the Lyrid meteor shower was meant to be around now) but even though the night was clear and there were plenty of stars to be seen, we still didn't see any shooting stars.

Wed 25th April - We got up earlier than any other day of the holiday and set about the final clear up of the house. Recycling went down to the bins by the river. We cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, sorted the floors (OK, Cathy did that!) and packed up. The lovely Collette came to pick us up and drove us to the airport. We were rather earlier than usual but passed the time with a delicious scrambled egg and toast combo from the newly opened restaurant upstairs at the airport. After the usual 45 minute wait in the world's most boring departure lounge we were off and heading for equally rainy Stansted. Our lift arrived, took us back to the car, we aquaplaned most of the way down the M11 and the M25 and then we were home. Booo. All over. It was lovely, as always and we're already planning a return trip.

All my photos can be found HERE.

PS - Re the huge house for sale in l'Isle Jourdain, we'd estimated an asking price of between £180,000 and £270,000. When we finally found the listing we discovered we were a bit out. It was on the market for £535,000 but did include a mill and an ancient fort as well as the four massive buildings on the island and an associated 2000 acres of land on a fishing lake 2km away. Don't think we'll be putting an offer in!

Can't? Don't? Won't?

The other day, a snippet of overheard conversation in the healthfood shop where I work got me thinking about the way we refer to our food choices.

As I'm vegetarian, and have been for over 20 years now, I'll use that as my example. How should I describe my diet?

1) I don't eat meat (fish etc)
2) I won't eat meat.
3) I can't eat meat.

Now, seeing as it's a choice, 1 and 2 are perfectly possible but really, 3 isn't. However, over the years, I am quite certain that I have uttered "Oh, I can't have that" or "There's nothing on the menu that I can eat" many many times.

Of course I can eat meat and fish and seafood and gelatin and cochineal etc etc. I have a mouth, teeth, a stomach, a digestive system so I can eat them and I could - if I chose to.

And that's the point. I choose not to. I don't pretend for one second that my non-eating of animal products is anything but a choice. It's a choice based entirely on my personal moral, philosophical code that we (human beings) do not have the right to kill any other living creature, regardless of the purpose.

So really, only "I don't eat meat" and "I won't eat meat" are the only appropriate descriptions and yet, most of the time, we hear "I can't have that". I've used "don't" but I'm pretty sure I've never said "I won't eat meat...".

Really, the only people who can honestly say "I can't have ..." are those who are properly allergic to a food (even then, they still can eat it, it would just be a very bad idea!) If there were a foodstuff which was going to cause my throat to close up and stop me breathing, or result in my being in hospital with severe digestive problems, I think I'd be quite right to say "I can't eat that". On a vegetarian forum recently, a meat-eater popped in to point out that vegetarians by choice shouldn't expect to be afforded the same respect as people who "have to be veggie", like certain religions. That sparked off an interesting row over whether or not someone's religion was or was not, like ethical vegetarianism, a choice. In my opinion, for what it's worth, it absolutely is a choice and again doesn't fall into the "can't" category.

I'm always aware when I go out to eat with a group that I might be the only vegetarian in the group and I have always attempted to be as laidback as possible about it. As long as there's one veggie starter and one veggie main course on a menu, I'm usually happy to eat wherever. I have actually found in the past that some of my omnivorous friends are harder to please!

By the same token, if I'm invited somewhere for dinner, I'm very grateful for the fact that people go out of their way to make me vegetarian food, whether it's just for me or they actually make an entirely veggie menu for everyone.

One thing I have noticed many times over the years is that when there is a spread of veggie and non-veggie food, the veggie stuff seems to go much faster and be much more popular with everyone! Now I know why I would find a slice of goats' cheese and caramelised onion quiche more tempting than a cocktail sausage, but it appears that many meat-eaters agree with me.

The main reason for the title of my blog was that several trips to Spain, before I moved there, led me to discover that the Spanish, particularly in Madrid, do not consider ham to be meat. They recognise that it is, of course, from an animal but it is a food category in its own right. Frequently, when faced with my "No como carne" (I don't eat meat), many waiters would triumphantly announce "Then I will bring you jamon!" I learnt quickly that I had to be more specific - "No como carne, pescado, mariscos o jamón."

Given the basis for my vegetarianism, I honestly can't see me ever changing my diet but I absolutely recognise that it is my choice, not a necessity.

How we know what we know

On a recent visit to my mum's for a couple of days, amongst other things we did some crosswords and some online and offline quizzes.

It occurred to me while we were doing one of them that there is some random crap contained in my brain. Now I've asked myself many times why it is that I can remember all the words to Bohemian Rhapsody but can't remember something useful like when I need to pay my credit card or when it's time to worm the cat. I've stopped trying to answer that though.

However, I did start to wonder how/where I learnt some of the actual random facts that I do know. Yes, some of it was at school so that's fair enough, but a lot of it is from reading, TV quiz shows, Trivial Pursuit, overheard conversations and some other ways that I probably can't quite put my finger on.

As far as reading's concerned, for example, I read anything and everything by Stephen King for many years. Thanks to those books (and only those books) I learnt about Hefty sacks, U-Haul, Twinkies, Schwinn bikes, the American meaning of carnival (or carny) and many other things.

QI has taught me a lot - many of them the exact opposite of things that I thought I knew. Like the fact that it's completely untrue that water spins the opposite way in the two hemispheres. No, it always goes down the drain clockwise unless it's caught in an unnatural weather phenomenon that covers a vast area - like a hurricane.

I learnt from an overheard conversation on a bus that a calorie is the amount of energy that it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Centigrade. I kind of knew it was something to do with heating something but could never remember quite what!

On a side note, I'd like to correct the very common misconception that Hitler was a vegetarian. This load of old bollocks is trotted out regularly as evidence that "not all vegetarians are nice, fluffy, lovely people". Now, I don't pretend that they (we?) are all lovely but equally, I don't see why there has to be any more proof that veggies can be evil any more than the fact that the rest of the population can. But to return to the point - Hitler wasn't vegetarian. There is plenty of written evidence that he ate meat regularly - there's a disputed "fact" that he had rabbit for his last meal.

These days of course, most of us learn stuff from posts made by our friends (and total strangers) on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Reddit and many other online sites. We could go to a library and open an encyclopaedia at a random page or we can just go to Wikipedia and ask it for a random fact.

The BBC news website regularly has a page of snippets of interesting information. There are sites which post lists such as "10 Things We Didn't Know" - most of the time they will contain 10 Things you didn't know either.

We're bombarded with new information all the time these days and I'm not pretending that it's possible to remember all of it. Nor is it all completely reliable of course. But in the great scheme of things, it's a lot easier to stumble across useful and interesting information these days than it used to be. Whether the sheer amount of information makes it easier or more difficult to actually learn stuff, I really don't know.

All-consuming aspect of motherhood

 Another blog I've had drafted since last summer - thought I'd better finish it!

I should start by reassuring you all that I am not pregnant nor broody nor any of those other (to me - inexplicable) states of being that all women are expected to experience at some point.

My feelings on that haven't changed since my early teens. I don't want kids now and I never have. I've always been grateful for that because when it comes to things like socialising, holidays etc I like to do what I want, when I want. Call me selfish, call me what you want, but that's the way I am.

Over the years, I've witnessed a phenomenon that seems to affect the vast majority of mothers (I would say parents but I've really only seen it with women). I'm talking about the sudden complete inability to hold a conversation about anything other than their child.

I sometimes visit a local café for my lunchbreak from work. It's a lovely café with delicious food, comfy seats, friendly staff and ... lots of yummy mummies and their kids. I'm prepared to overlook that to get my fix of Higgidy Pie and mash.

One day last summer I was enjoying said pie when three women, babies and toddlers in tow, entered and took the table next to mine. For the next 45 minutes there was precisely one topic of conversation - the kids. Or at least, their experience of having/bringing up those kids. They literally just compared notes on feeding, sleeping patterns, weaning, expressing milk, childcare, toys, prams, nappies, colic, vomit, poo, schools. You get the picture! At no point did I even hear them properly talk about themselves let alone anyone else unconnected to the kids. The very first exchange between two of the women was:

"How are you?"
"OK. She's not been sleeping and she won't eat properly at the moment. Oh, and Darren (who I worked out was the woman's son) just got into the football team at school!"
"Oh bless her. Hope she gets better soon. That's great about Darren. I can't wait til Luke is old enough to play football".

So basically she didn't actually answer the question "How are YOU?"

And so it went on. And on. And on. Punctuated only by various noises emanating from the prams, pushchairs, highchairs etc.

Surely motherhood is meant to be just one facet of a woman's life, if she chooses to go down that road. It shouldn't be the be all and end all. It shouldn't mean a total loss of personal identity. Or maybe I'm just missing the point given that I've never been interested in that aspect of life.

Are delivery charges justifiable?

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm bored. Bored enough to post a blog - a long overdue blog admittedly but I'm still drafting the one I actually want to post. This one will have to do for now.

So - Royal Mail delivery charges. Or rather, the P&P charged by companies who use Royal Mail. I recently considered ordering a couple of things from a lovely local organic household products company. They make green, chemical-free, organic, cruelty-free and very lovely washing up liquid, surface cleaners etc. I've used one of their products before but can't get it where I got the first one so I checked their website. The prices were pretty good - just over £2 for a large bottle of washing up liquid.

Their online ordering system is a little weird. I ticked the two items I wanted and clicked "Purchase". Instead of getting an invoice and a payment screen, I just got a message saying "Your order has been submitted. You will receive an email detailing the full price including delivery charges and information on how to pay". Unusual, I thought, but OK.

48 hours went by and I'd heard nothing so I chased it up via the website. I received a fast reply from the owner, with an invoice attached. The two products I wanted to buy came to £4.95. The delivery charge - a flat £5! Ouch. Admittedly, the email did mention that I could have up to four products delivered all for the same £5 delivery charge but of course that would mean my spending more on products.

I don't think I'm particularly stingy or cheap but paying £5 delivery for an order that came to less than £5 just didn't sit well. Needless to say, I didn't order. Now that's disappointing on two fronts - I'm not getting the products I wanted and the company have lost a sale. I honestly don't know how much Royal Mail actually charge for delivery but even if the company wasn't making a profit on that, I'm still not paying it.

If you add to that the fact that in the last month I've waited 9 and 11 days for two parcels to come via Royal Mail, it's even less appealing. Given that the company is local and ethical etc, I honestly don't think they're trying to rip anyone off with the delivery charges but that just makes it all the more disappointing that I couldn't be persuaded to order with them.

I actually feel sorry for anyone trying to run a company which relies on the postal service - and I use "service" in the loosest possible sense of the word.

An expensive non-event

A few weeks ago, I got an email from The Applause Store, a well-known group which provides (free) tickets to the filming of TV shows. Normally, I ignore them as they're for such shite as Big Brother and various other "reality" shows. However, this one offering was pretty tempting - a show called New Britannia, hosted by Morgan Spurlock (he of Supersize Me) and with such guests as Rich Hall, one of my favourites, and various others. So two tickets were duly applied for and granted. Hurrah.

The filming was due to take place on January 9th in London, out at the BBC Wood Lane studios in Shepherd's Bush. It seemed like a long way to go just for a couple of hours in the evening so we decided to make a bit of a day of it.

It still staggers me just how much public transport is these days. London is only 52 miles from Brighton, yet a return ticket booked in advance, even travelling at a civilised time of day, was over £21.

A bit of a hiccup in the morning meant we didn't set off til about 3 hours after we'd planned and only had time for a quick skip round Camden Market, an hour in the Natural History Museum, which I'd promised myself, and a final 20 minutes in the Science Museum. All free, all good.

The TV filming tickets had said that we had to arrive "in good time" to ensure entry. Actual filming was due to start at 7pm, the doors were due to open at 6.30 so we figured that 45 minutes in advance would be more than sufficient. Coming out of the tube station, walking towards the BBC building and seeing an alarmingly large queue made us a bit dubious but we still thought we'd be fine. The queue seemed to hold audience members for more than one show which also made us feel better.

Misplaced optimism, it turned out. Less than ten minutes after we joined the queue, a guy from the studio walked up the queue shouting "Anyone with tickets for New Britannia from the Applause Store, sorry, we're full up. If you contact the Applause Store, they'll give you guaranteed tickets for the next filming of the show". And that was that. The last people to get in were about 10 ahead of us in the queue. Most other people just wandered off saying "Oh well" but I guess they probably lived in London and therefore it was no great shakes for them. For us however, having spent £42 and most of the day, really just to go to the filming, it was more than disappointing. And we certainly weren't going to spend another £42 going on a different day even with guaranteed tickets.

Determined not to just slink back to Brighton with our tails between our legs, we wandered over to Westfield Shopping Centre, not for shopping, which I hate, but because we assumed it would have a load of places to eat. Wrong again. Well, not wrong, but what was there seemed to be overpriced, chain-type rubbish. We dived into a nearby pub to decide what to do when I realised that I have the Time Out London app on my phone so I quizzed it for suggestions.

Lo and behold, a ten-minute walk down the road was a vegetarian restaurant, of 22 years' standing, called Blah Blah Blah. Good reviews, online menu looked tasty, we were hungry so off we went. What a find. It was lovely. Beautifully done out, chilled, only 3 other people there, attentive friendly waiter and ... a pot of crayons and a paper tablecloth on each table so you could let your creative juices flow before, during and after your meal. The food was absolutely delicious and, for London, not too expensive. We were also pleased to find that despite the online site saying that they weren't licensed, they actually were so we even got a bottle of wine to wash down our food.

All in all, a mixed day. Train fares are a rip-off but bits of London are still worth the effort, the Applause Store isn't worth wasting any more time on but at least missing out on the filming meant we found a great restaurant.

Swings and roundabouts!