Sometimes travel just does my head in....

It's been a rough and tumble week. Aside from a visit from tante Sarah (which was excellent), we're all finding being estrangers a bit difficile. Mainly this is because there are no bloody children around! Apparently they all go to ecole maternelle everyday of the week, all day. I don't really see what's so maternelle about that. The four year olds must sit and learn to read and write for a few hours a day. I really can't see how any child with the wriggly bottoms that mine have, could do that. Also, the french playgrounds are a rather dusty, joyless places. I took Daniel to one in Limoux last week and he said: 'where are all the things?' and 'where are the kids?' There was a couple having a bit of an argy-bargy in a low-key way and smoking. Hrumph...

Does this sound just like a long whinge? It's actually okay. One of the highlights of my days is reading The Children's Book, AS Byatt's new one. It's really wonderful, and does remind me, that even though I long for a full-time nanny, so I might read my novel in a more sustained manner, it's actually good that I don't have one. This time is a time of composting of the self, as a writer told me recently. Speaking of which, there is so much shit on the pavements, and we're not even in Paris. We walk along the footpath and say, 'watch out poo, watch out more poo'.

But, good things: chevre frais (this is my favourite cheese - fresh goat's cheese, sold in little rounds in the market that they wrap in waxy paper). The cheese sellers yell at you and thrust bits of cheese on sharp knives in your face, so you feel you must eat their wares, and buy them. Also, today I bought les moules (tiny mussles) which we had for lunch cooked in some crement (local bubbly) that had lost its fizz. Yum. Baked fruit - which we do with the most delicious peaches, nectarines, prunes (plums, but not like NZ ones), mirabelles, and raisins (their grapes are perfect at present). Sprinkled with sugar and a bit of butter and eaten with marscapone. Delicious. I also like the bells in the village. They ring out every hour and half hour, with some extra ding dong dings at midday and 7pm in case you'd forgotten it was time to eat some more.

Eeyoreishly yours,
Kirsten.

Food etc.....

Hi all

The web is intermittent here, hence the time it's taken to get to publishing something. Firstly, it is pretty wonderful here, but we miss you all! Daniel was just going through the list of friends and family that he misses, and us, ours. But, with the help of beaucoup de chevre (much goat's cheese) and grapes, raspberries, peaches, baguettes, brie, rose, breton beurre (the butter is fab), haricots verts, marscapone and cream fraiche - we're getting by. Monday we went to the mediaeval town of Mirepoix and bought much of the above. David purchased 2kg of grapes, which I thought over the top, but they're almost gone. There were so many Frenchies at the market (half-10 on a Monday morning), I wondered if any of them actually work. I think they get paid to make the market look authentic. So the food here is wonderful, as is the wine. The music is still shite. At the market it was either the M People or some mediaeval hippies playing flutes. Also, the clothes here are disgusting (apart from kid's clothes). The weather has been super hot - makes it to 40 degrees in the middle of the day, which is a bit too hot. We swam for an hour and a half today. Thank goodness for the pool. The kids are pretty happy. Francis took a while to get used to being over seas, but Daniel has done brilliantly. Francis is now working on crawling (still) and pulling himself up on people and furniture. Not looking forward to seeing what he does with the very steep osh-hazard that is our staircase. Planning some castles this weekend, and the musee de dinosaurs!

Love to you all, and I hope the Wellington weather is treating you okay.

Kxo

cheeses I have eaten

Waitrose's grana padano, waitrose's mild cheddar. Nothing extraordinary yet. Good raspberries though. And nectarines.

un autre fromage vrai

Cheese fact (courtesy of Zak):
In Britain, the first instance of film censorship came
after a demand from an outraged cheese industry in 1898. Charles Urban
had released
one of his scientific films taken through a microscope which revealed
the unappealing bacterial activity in a piece of stilton.

Cheese jokes are coming thick and fast.

This state of the nation quote in from M. Szabo:

"Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays où il existe 258 variétés de
fromage?"
"How can one be expected to govern a country where
there are 258 varieties of cheese?"
Charles De Gaulle, 1962

la grippe porcine

We don't call it the swiney round here.

Three days out from leaving and Daniel is sick sick sick. Arghhh.... I hope to post exciting and sophisticated traveller-type news soon.