November 30th

30^th November. A restful day in Saint Laurent sur Gorre

We spent the morning doing chores. OshKosh had come to the party and the sun was shining through the trees, so we strung up a clothes line and hung all our bedding out to air. Then we set about washing all sorts of things, tea towels, smalls, tee-shirts and a pair of trousers each. We filled the line with our clean hand wrung out washing, and waited for the gentle breeze and pale sunlight to do their thing. Of course almost as soon as we had it all hung, and were sitting down for a well- earned cup of tea, the clouds closed together and the sunlight disappeared. Despite a very gentle breeze, the temperature dropped sufficiently to prevent any drying happening, sp we had rows of wet garments to house when we finally gave up trying.

In spite of the now quite cold day, we needed to get out, so we had a short walk into what constituted the village, but was not much more than a few buildings collected together. 

One was a bookshop where we were able to buy a postcard of the village for our book, and a small grocery shop where we got a few fresh vegetables and dairy products. Our last port of call was the patisserie (of course) where we purchased a delicious loaf of pain traditionale, a small sponge roll with citron curd and raspberry conserve wrapped in it and covered with whipped cream flavoured with citron on one side and raspberry on the other. It was actually pretty good, despite being a shocking pink and equally shrill yellow. We also had  a piece of apricot flan, with a thick custard filling topped with sliced apricot and apricot glaze, the filling was delicious but the base was a bit eggy, almost like a frittata/omelette which wasn’t how we expect flans to be, it wasn’t unpleasant just unusual for us. Our other piece was a coffee flavoured profiterole with coffee icing and a coffee custard inside. Again the profiterole pastry was like the eggy base of the flan, and the custard different texture and flavour for us. Not nasty at all, just not a 10/10 score for us. That’s what we have been doing in France. We get something tasty from the nearest patisserie/boulangerie most days (to help the local economy we always say, so for purely altruistic reasons of course) we tend to get three items, one choice each, but then we divide them all in thirds so we have a wee sample of each. Often we will (or Hilary will) draw up a grid and we will score them in order of preference. Many times they look superb and the taste doesn’t quite meet expectations, but sometimes they score very highly. I think my favourite still is probably the mille fille is still my tops, especially the ones with a little grog in the custard.

After indulging in pastries for afternoon tea I felt a distinct need for exercise, so I took the bike off the back of the truck and went for a ride along dirt tracks/roads through the forest and country-side around the environs of the village. It was really beautiful to be out, taxing the body on hill climbs and riding over rocks and through sludge in the fresh air. I didn’t go for long, probably only 45 minutes but it was good. On my journey I found a whole lot of what looked like NZ field mushrooms, so I picked them and stuffed them down my jacket and took them back to the truck.

On my trip I had seen some geese, and as Hilary had some old bread,  we had been looking for ducks or some other likely taker to feed. There weren’t any wild ducks to be found in the vicinity of the village (I guess they were all in the locals’ freezers) but I thought these geese might be an option. So Hilary and I went over with the bread but couldn’t find the geese. Instead we found a donkey who came running when he saw us, and chewed on the little hard knobs of bread as though they were lollies. We promised him that if Hilary was onto it in the morning we would come back with some boiled sweets, at which he smiled.

Unfortunately they were a bit gritty and they also tasted a little medicinal (like the smell of a dentist’s rooms) so after a tiny nibble we decided to give them a miss, I had visions of some terrible central nervous system failure besetting us so as Hilary had not wanted to try them I told her to run over to the British campervan and tell them what we had eaten (along with samples) should we start exhibiting odd (or odder than usual behaviour, or strange twitching). She looked at me with Bloomer eyebrow raised, until I assured her I was fair dinkum!!!

In the evening it was so cold we all decided to sleep together, Hilary one end of the bed and us the other, it was excellent for warmth, but not really conducive to a restful sleep with constant tug-of-warring for covers, and feet in odd places. So when I finally awoke I can’t say I was particularly rested.