My old-fashioned Correzien Christmas cake

Well, there was a time . . .

when  October came and I used to bake my Christmas cake to my old-fashioned Christmas cake recipe, then store it in a tin until Christmas.  It would be wrapped in greaseproof paper, then tinfoil, then in a tin, and would be removed periodically so that brandy could poured into the cake via holes made with a knitting needle.

In recent years, certainly the last two, I've neglected this tradition for one reason or another.  But tonight, I have revived that tradition here in rural France.  I've had to borrow a cake tin from a fellow ex-pat as my favourite large family size, old fashioned metal tin is nowhere to be found, and I've had to use French flour which comes in a bewildering variety of varieties, and French sugar, which seems to be ultra-sweet, so we will see what the result is like.  I'll have to stay up until midnight of course to check that it's cooked, maybe one in the morning, but it should be worth it!  And I love Christmas cake in all its varieties, and so does Harry.

Growing up in the North East, recipes for cakes, bread and other savouries would also come from the Be-ro book via my mam, and many a battered copy was always in the house (no pun intended, but even now I sometimes refer to the Yorkshire Pudding recipe, just to be sure!).  My Christmas cake recipe is one I got from a magazine about 30 years ago, and the 'old-fashioned' bit is they say the inclusion of prunes, which it states were used many, many years ago in seasonal cake recipes.

So, off now to check the oven, as the oven is new as well, therefore strange to me, so fingers crossed for the cake-tasting in less than three weeks time, with Christopher and Jess here to join in the tasting.

© Marie Tyler, 2012

Tylers Anniversary Time!

Bon soir a tous!

Long time no write, or add to my blog - lots of time spent in the garden before winter arrives, painting shutters and window frames before winter arrives and just daily living before winter arrives, so I've neglected my blog!

The Tyler household likes to mark family birthdays, so we always have a busy run up to Christmas - tomorrow Christopher's birthday (30th), Friday 23 November will be Harry's 60th birthday, and 8 December will be my 65th - an impossible thought!  Poor old Jess with all those birthdays, and her out on a limb in May!

Harry had the idea of doing some kind of short film/video/show for Christopher's birthday and you can see the result  at http://www.bricabracabroc.co.uk/Birthday.html (not available on mobile phones I'm advised).

This involved me, looking through hundreds of photos and digital images, to find favourite photos of Christopher over the years.  I then learned the art of scanning, then Harry spending time doing his graphic magic to put them into the show, along with the mad images of us two.   Lots of manipulation there!  The photo sorting was a nostalgic trip I must say, time-consuming as we have lots and lots of photos and duplicates of photos and even duplicates of duplicates it seems.   Still, it was a pleasant trip and has left me with another sort-out project to add to my long 'To do' list.  

We would love to have joined Christopher and Jess for a birthday extravaganza to celebrate all the numbers, but big bills are looming for the oil for our heating, new kitchen ceiling (water-leak) and new kitchen (Ikea's best), so the celebration will be delayed until Christmas when we'll all be together here in Chamberet.  Harry and I will however be popping a bottle of some kind of fizz tomorrow on the 19th and possibly also on the 23rd and 8th!  Well, we do live in the land of champagne so it's readily available here with lots of choice and not too expensive.

So, regards to all - please feel free to send messages via Facebook, email or even Royal Mail - it's great to receive news from home. 

(Still trying to work out how to upload images here - might have sorted for next time)


© Marie Tyler, 2012

Canny cool after the canicule

Yes - we recently experienced the canicule here in Chamberet.  Le canicule is probably best translated as a heatwave and we had that heatwave from what I now remember for at least a week.  The heat does befuddle your head!  The calculation of the canicule is apparently calculated differently in different parts of France, but the definition is based on day and night temperatures when they both exceed a certain temperature for a defined period. Certainly here it was in the low to mid 30s for a few days, with the night temperatures being very uncomfortable for sleep.  We didn't allow ourselves to utter a word of complaint though, since we came here among other things for the heat, as well as the more relaxed lifestyle, wine, cheese, etc.

So, on Saturday gone, we were a bit miffed to experience cool temperatures, grey skies and driving rain.  This was the day we had decided to do a 'Vide Grenier' - 'Empty your attic', ie the English equivalent of a car boot sale - at our neighbouring village or hamlet named Soudaine-Lavinadiere.  As family and friends know, we have a lot of 'stuff', some of it very interesting, unusual 'stuff', as well as new, interesting,  French stuff found in the house here.  Soudaine-Lavinadiere is a very pretty hamlet, with a large archaeological dig going on at the moment with a whole team of archaeology students.  We didn't notice them flagging in the rain and descending temperatures, but they are probably well used to everything that nature throws at them on their digs.

We arrived at the Vide Grenier at 8.00, which isn't bad for the Tylers on a Saturday morning.  We set up everything but the books and postcards which were wisely left on display in the back of the car.  As the morning wore on, our lovely ceramics, the fox hunting teapot set (which my mother once won at the bingo - honest!) and remaining royal souvenirs from 1977 and 1981 were suffering, and the showers became more prolonged, colder and heavier.  We are just off 'the mountain' around here and the clouds seemed to be clinging everywhere.  I must say that the punters kept coming - maybe they hoped for sunnier skies as well - and were all very sympathetic to us and the community association which had organized as whole day of activities.  But sympathy didn't keep the cold or wet away, or encourage the punters to by, so we reluctantly packed up all the sodden articles, including ourselves and were back here by 12 noon.  (I should add I was also getting over bronchitis - the first time in my life that that was ever diagnosed!  So much for our new warmer life!)

Other stallholders kept saying how the weather would improve in the afternoon, but we were too cold, wet and miserable to wait that long.  Sure enough it did improve in the afternoon, with April type skies and showers - too late for us to muster up the enthusiasm to venture forth anew and display our soggy items for sale.

So, now it's Monday.  Yesterday, Sunday, turned out lovely as well, and today it has been about 29 degrees!  Cool in the morning and now in the evening, so no longer a canicule, but another scorcher during the day!  Our friends arrive tomorrow from sunny Kenton Bank Foot, near Newcastle Airport, so we hope they experience some canicular weather as a change from back home.


© Marie Tyler, 2012

Chamberet Journée du Livre, jeudi le 9 août 2012

La commune de Chamberet a organisé sa traditionelle journée du livre le jeudi 9 août 2012, avec la participation d'auteurs de la région, éditeurs et lecteurs.

Je suis maintenant une chambertoise, donc j'essaye à participer dans les animations variés et divers dans notre village.  Avec une autre residente gauloise, j'ai décidé de participer, et d'expliquer que j'ai un blog - qu'est-ce que ça veut dire, pourquoi je l'ai fait et comment on fait un blog.

Qu'est-ce que c'est un blog?

Blog veut dire web-log - un type de journal qu'on peut écrire et n'importe qui peut lire sur l'internet ou sur leur portable.


Pourquoi j'ai écrit un blog?

Nous avons acheté notre maison ici à Chamberet dans le mois d'août l'année dernière et nous avons déménagée le 1 octobre.  Notre famille et nos amis en Angleterre s'intéressaient dans notre nouvelle vie en France et voulaient savoir tous les détails.  D'abord j'ai écrit beaucoup de lettres, puis mails.  J'aimais bien ça mais ça a pris beaucoup de temps, donc j'ai décidé de faire un blog sur l'internet.  Comme ça notre famille et nos amis pourraient suivre notre vie en France! 

Comment on fait un blog?

Il y a quelques sites, mais le mien j'ai fait par le site http://www.blogger.com.  C'est facile à faire si on suit les instructions.

Bonne chance avec votre blog!

Merci à mon mari, nouveau artiste chambertois, Harry Tyler, pour son assistance avec mon blog!


© Marie Tyler, 2012

Journée du Livre, Book Day, Chamberet, Thurs 9 August 2012

As part of our continuing immersion in community life here in our new home in Chamberet, I have volunteered to take part in the annual Journée du Livre (Book Day) this Thursday 9 August 2012.  About 30-odd regional authors take part on the day and there are children's activities and this year presentations on bookbinding, French songs and novels, and the experiences of a French chef.

Last year's Journée du Livre took place when we were here in Chamberet to sign for our house.  We were surprised at the number of local authors who were there with their published works.  It was a very friendly event and we had an interesting conversation with one of the author's of lovely children's books, who had been a clown in a former life!

I offerred to take part and decided to present something about my blog 'Busy Days in Chamberet' and decided to explain how I have created my blog, how easy it is to set up, and how to go about setting one up on here on blogger.com.

The information I intend to present is:

What is a blog?

A blog is a web-log - a type of personal journal, which anyone can set up on the internet and can be accessed by all.

Why did I start doing a blog?

We bought our house here in Chamberet last August (2011) and moved here permanently on 1 October 2011.  Friends and family were keen to know all about our new life here in France, and in the first few weeks when we had no internet, I spent a lot of time sending personal letters.  Then when we were originally set up with the internet, a lot of time sending emails which again I personalised.  Although I have always enjoyed writing and have been a great letter writer (something I inherited from my mother) it meant I was spending a lot of time repeating the same information, so to save time, I thought I would write a blog!


How to create your own blog?

Creating a blog is easy - all you need is a computer and internet access.  Go to this site:  http://www.blogger.com and follow the instructions. 

 I've just recently noticed there are all sorts of features, most of which I haven't used yet, but hope to use them in future postings.  One feature is that your blog can be viewed on a mobile phone.

The Journée du Livre takes place in the Salle de Fetes, Chamberet,  this Thursday 9 August 2012, from 10 h to 19 h, entry is free and all are welcome.

Thanks to my husband, Harry Tyler, now a Chambertois artist with paintings in the current exhibition in the village, for his help with presenting this blog.


© Marie Tyler, 2012

Wildlife in our Chamberet garden

Just to make it clear - the title might suggest we have more than one garden, but we have only one garden and that is here in Chamberet!

We have gardens on all sides, and a couple of small fields out the back, so plenty of space for wildlife and pleny of space to hear and be aware of the wildlife.  Also in this area there is an amazing amount of birdlife - lots of birds of prey - buzzards, eagles, kites -  which can regularly be seen gliding up high.

As for our garden wildlife - there are lots of ants, some spectacular beetles and all sorts of bees, including huge black bees and lots of birds, which grace us with their morning chorus long before it's light at this time of year.  Lots of sparrow-type little birds, blue tits, some amazingly fast swifts at the moment, the occasional robin, a lot of noisy magpies and something we think is a black redstart. There's also a recent visitor, not at all shy, with some sort of a crest. A couple of blackbirds made their nest in an orange box which was on a ladder in the woodstore.  Unfortunately, one of the local cats must have climbed up the pile of wood as we noticed the box was all askew.  We noticed a lack of blackbird activity and when Harry looked, they had abandoned the nest leaving three lovely eggs behind.  They seem to be active again around the garden, so we hope they might nest again, though doubt that they'd return to the same place.  There are some other small birds, some kind of pippit or lark maybe that is nesting in the back of an old satellite dish!

The other bird which is a resident or lodger of ours is a barn owl!  We often sit in the garden in the evening and as it gets dark, often saw an owl or two flying around outside, then noticed screeching kind of noises from one of our chimneys.  We are now sure that there are chicks in there and think it might soon be time for them to leave (hoping there's not much damage left behind!).  Watching and listening to the owls in the evening is great, and having an owl watching you is even more interesting, as they often perch around and check us out!

We have quite a few lizards, which appear when the weather is warm from various hidey-holes, including in a rose bush near the front door.  It's often debatable who gets the bigger fright when I water the rose bush and see something darting out at high speed.  Our latest discovery is a toad, or a couple of toads which come out now every night.  There has been a bit of a chorus recently so there are obviously quite a few around in our garden and neighbours' gardens.  The other nighttime noise apart from croaking and screeching, are the crickets who are actually noisy during the day as well pn warm days and all through the warm nights.

Watching and waiting for the owl is the highlight at the moment - what a simple life we lead!  Off now to observe as it's dark here and a lovely soft evening.


© Marie Tyler, 2012

The Hoppings come to Chamberet for the Cherry Festival!

Hello again readers!  Since I was last blogging here, the whole format and set-up has changed.  I'm not very good at consulting instructions, so will press on and hope all turns out well in the end.

The latest news here is the lead up to the 17th two-day Fete de la Cerise this Saturday ('twil be on the 9th of June) and Sunday.  When we arrived here last October and found out about the Fete de la Cerise, we rushed out to buy a cherry tree to plant in our new spacious garden.  Our neighbour reliably told us that the previous owner had cut down a cherry tree, so we thought we should replace it.  Just last week we found out from other neighbours, that this isn't a cherry-growing area!  The thing here is apples, which we did know about because of the local apple juice and cider-making 'factory', or maybe it's called something like a 'pommerie' or even 'cidrerie'.  I should also add that we have since discovered and identified another cherry tree in the garden, but no signs or any blossom or fruit this year.  The weather hasn't been great for cherry-growing I believe - we had hot sunny days in March (up to 30 some days), then rain for weeks, late frosts, then 20s and 30s again, so a lot of plants, fruit and veg are a bit confused.

Back to the Cherry Festival . . .  Apparently either our local supermarket, G20, or festival organisers arrange for lots of cherry sellers to come from further south, so that they can't be done under the Trades Description Act, but that's only part of the fun.  To my great delight, earlier this week Hoppings type vehicles started passing our door aiming for the Champ de Foire next to the Salle de Fetes (community centre) about 100 yards from our house.  Every village around here has a Champ de Foire - it's the word for fairground and in the past would have been where the sheep or cattle market was held, as well as a fairground site. Ours is now a wide open space with a wooded area with lines of trees and rails where the animals would have been tethered. 

Part of growing up in Newcastle was an annual trip to The Hoppings,The Moor, or The Town Moor,  the largest travelling fair in Europe, held on The Town Moor come rain or shine (very often mud) for a week in June.  Then later living in County Durham it would be a delight to see hoppings or 'shows' at various parts of the county or even further south  as June approached making their way north to Newcastle, then south to events such as The Durham Miners Gala in July.  I had that same feeling of excitement and anticipation this week when I saw a procession of assorted show vehicles with trailers and caravans - it also made me think of 'Something wicked this way comes' a great story by Ray Bradbury.  By coincidence I heard on the radio this morning that he died earlier this week. 

So, now the hoppings are installed on the Champ de Foire - kiddies roundabouts, what looks like a waltzer, something called Le Tremblaye and other shows yet to be revealed.  Over the road stalls with striped awnings have been set up and among the many attractions there's going to be a GIANT Clafoutis (a local cherry tart), demonstration by the local young firefighters, a balloon sculptor, gyropodes (not sure what that will be), and a free dance beginning 9.30 Saturday night - a noisy night ahead with that and the shows, then more fun on Sunday with a free dance at 3.00 pm.  I'm hoping that will be like you see in French films, with outdoor dancing to les accordeons!  And of course, the usual restauration (refreshments) and a buvette (outdoor bar).  The weather forecast unfortunately isn't good with some stormy weather predicted, for Sunday, and storms here are usually pretty impressive, so let's hope it changes for the better and we all have all the fun of the fair!

© Marie Tyler, 2012

Can Spring be far behind? (or even summer) Spring forward en France!

As I write this, our garden is bursting with new life and flowers - listen! you should be able to hear it even at a great distance!  Of course, you say, this is nothing new, it's happening everywhere, even in the North East (of England). Yes, I agree, but for us the unusual, exciting thing is that this is our first spring in France, in this house, with this garden and we don't know yet just what is in there!  Open the front door and you will see colourful grape hyancinths, primulas (all colours),  hyacinths, daffodils, tulips (just coming out) and a camellia, which has unfortunately been affected by the frost of even so short a time ago as two weeks.

We have been away for the weekend to our friends who live further south near the Pyrenees.  So near that when you look out of their conservatory windows across their long garden (more like a small field), there they are in the distance.  The mountains, which are an amazing sight, were still snow-capped this weekend so looked even more impressive with the spring sun on them.  (I often ask myself if people who live in areas of outstanding beauty (like the Lake District for example) ever lose the wonder of the landscape around them - I suppose that applies to many features, not just landscape - I'm thinking here of Durham Cathedral - do we become blasé of things on our doorstep?  Answers on a postcard please.)

After we left the motorway south of Montauban, north of Toulouse, on a long, straight road to their house in Blajan, we passed some stunning fields full of trees in full blossom.  They were planted  like vineyards, with rows of trees, not vines,  trees with pink and white blossom, some all one colour, some a mixture of colours and different types of  trees. A couple of sites which cheered the heart had rows of trees in blossom with a sign declaring 'Amandes Francaises' - French Almond Trees - stunning!

When we came back further north here to Chamberet after an absence of three days, high temperatures and the clocks going back on Saturday night,  we could see in our garden that tulips were flowering, the pruned  rose bushes have thankfully started to sprout leaves - lots of them - and the fruit (one apple and four pear) trees are about to blossom.  It's all very exciting and inspiring and we look forward to the next few days as seedlings of radishes, carrots, lettuces and other veg that Harry has planted start to burst forth!  We have been warned though by the neighbours that we shouldn't be planting out yet. The local wisdom, or even the French wisdom, is that we shouldn't plant until, I think, 15 May,Sainte Denise - although I may have the wrong date and therefore the wrong saint.    Today's temperature was 23 degrees C in the shade - long may it continue, but we wouldn't mind - would really like in fact - rain at night as well to refill the water butt at least!  We have always beeb environmentally aware and active, but now that our water here is metered, we are even more so!

Our first spring here, and it feels like summer - this great weather apparently happened last year from February onwards (with a not-so-nice July) so let's hope for a repeat performance this year!

Happy planting to all and hope you are enjoying good uplifting weather wherever you are!

© Marie Tyler, 2012

Our first Christmas in France

This actually started off as 'Christmas is coming . . . '  and of course, it's now Christmas is long  gone, and even the New Year has lost its newness!

In fact, it's my second Christmas in France - the first one being in 1972 when I was au pair with a family in Lyon, spending Christmas at the grandparents house in the Lyon mountains.  It was an interesting, different, but very homesick celebration for me.  But this has been our first Christmas in our new French home . . .

I think the first signs of Christmas here were actually in late October when we were in one of the many DIY stores we've been frequenting,, when 'Jingle Bells' or some such was playing.  Even the shop assistant agreed that that was a bit early!  Then early in December, like a little bairn, I was delighted to discover that we had some Christmas lights on the lamp post opposite our house - giant white snow flakes.  Then other lights appeared in the village - around the Mairie and along the main streets, with 'Joyeuses Fêtes' strung in giant white lights across the middle of the village.  Then Christmas trees appeared, propped up outside all of the village shops and the salle de fêtes, decorated by the shops themselves, mostly with giant gold or red bows and a bit of tinsel - not many ornaments in sight.  There was even a little wooden hut outside the school, which at a distance looked like a little gingerbread cottage, but on peeping through the window, there was an oversize Santa propped up inside  - quite scary I thought!

Every village also has their own lights - nothing over the top, just some lovely cheerful Christmas-themed decorations on lamp posts and buildings.  Some people put lights outside their houses and in their gardens.  I saw only a couple which might threaten the national grid, but not to the extent of some in England in recent years. Most popular by far though were Santas hanging out of windows and being blown about in the winter winds.

We've always enjoyed Christmas Carol Concerts (especially the one at Ushaw College which Carol kindly got us tickets for on a few occasions, but now unfortunately gone).  It isn't a tradition in France as far as I know, but we did manage to go along to a couple and add our voices.  The first one was at La Croisille sur Briance, which is about 15 kilometres from here.  They seem to have a thriving French-English group and this was their 6th Carol Concert.  It was a lovely evening, with a programme of French and English carols and readings alternating, and with the full involvement of French and English and children from the primary school.  At the end there were mince pies, all home-made in all their varieties, and mulled wine, provided by Kevin, who has the English restaurant, Chez Kevin, in the village.  The second one we went to was during the daytime, in the church at Meilhards, the next village to ours.  This I think was a first attempt by a group of mainly English people, and had a full programme of 23 carols and Christmas songs.  Harry had just remarked how he was happy to have escaped Slade playing in every shop, when, lo and behold! it was included in the programme, along with 'So this is Christmas'.  The church was freezing, so the mulled wine and spice cake afterwards were most welcome.


We didn't have to endure any stressful shopping this year - although supermarkets and shops are full of Christmas gifts and offers, and like everywhere else, lots of 'Made in China' goods and tat, maybe because we are in such a rural area, we managed to escape all that frenetic materialism and Slade and worse blaring from every shop!


But we do also love our live Christmas trees, and even in the confines of the cottage at Witton Gilbert, we had managed a sizeable tree, complete with generations of decorations.  We are surrounded by pine forests here, with probably all varieties, but we were actually honest enough to  buy a nice specimen from one of the local garden centres, cheaper than we would have bought at home, and that was installed and decorated in our newly-papered and painted living room.  We didn't have a white Christmas which meant the roads were fine for when we collected Christopher and Jess from the beautiful Les Bénédictins railway station in Limoges on Christmas Eve.

Part of our Christmas ritual also includes Midnight Mass, and here like lots of places in England was at 8.00 pm, or rather 20.00.  The village church was crowded with a small choir up in the gallery and rather a grumpy priest who did not show many signs of the Christmas spirit!  The French tradition is then to have a real  feast after midnight mass, le Réveillon, with family and friends but we hadn't planned for that this year, so it was straight home to wait for Santa.

Christmas Day was the usual late rising, but with apéritifs at midday chez nous, with our French friends Roger and Elsa who were here from Paris.  Christmas lunch chez les Tylers is always an interesting affair, with vegetarians and carnivores always well catered for.  This year it was mostly prepared by Christopher and Jess, so Harry had a well-earned rest, and while the capon was cooking (not a chicken, but in fact a castrated cockerel - sorry about that!)  off we went for a walk around the Arboretum which is about a five minute walk away.  It was a beautiful day, cold with clear blue skies, and gave us a chance to show the village off to Christopher and Jess on their first visit here.  As well as trees, the Arboretum also has a large pond with ducks,  an animal park and an exercise trail.  That was the best fun - what a laugh we had, all trying out the various exercise installations and trying to work out how to use them, and what they were for!

The Christmas meal and proceedings were also such fun, as someone once said, with quality Christmas crackers from last year's Co-op sales, and good wine, food and company.  There wasn't much present giving this year, but we did buy from the local farm shop the same T-shirt for Christopher and Jess, which was relevant for both of them (a dedicated carnivore and a dedicated vegetarian actress).   The Limousin cattle here are well-known, and the Tshirt was a local Limousin production with the words "To beef or not to beef . . .".

The rest of the Christmas break was spent in other walks around the village and a ride out to the lake at Treignac and a wander around Treignac's medieval streets, which were very much appreciated.  We then ended up by chance with a tour of another English family's house on one of the really steep lanes up from the river in Treignac.  This also impressed us all, as stunning views over the river and has been ingeniously adapted to fit into the hillside - quite an inspiration.

Other Christmas entertainment ended with an impromtu Abba evening - Jess and I are great Abba fans, so we had great fun singing and dancing along, and neither of us were very clever the following day.  But, all good things come to an end, and Christopher and Jess had to go back to work, and we carried on here with our renovations.

Our tree and decorations came down as usual on Twelfth Night, the Epiphany, 6 January - ornaments and decorations back into boxes to go into the attic, and the tree recycled this year as kindling and firewood for the woodburner.  And the living room looked bare after all the colour and sparkle.

I note though, around the place, that even today on 11 January, there are still Christmas wreaths forgotten on front doors, but all the hanging Santas have at last disappeared, until next Christmas maybe, when the cycle starts again.

And following Christmas, New Year wishes here are the same - "Bonne Année! Bonne Santé!"  Happy New Year!  Good Health! when greeting people for the first time in the New Year.  So, a very belated Bonne Santé et Meilleurs Voex à tous!