Visitors

We get lots of visitors who want to see what progress we have made in the house, so they pop in when they’re passing, and the more savvy of them know that we stop work for a tea break at 4pm, which means cakes and imported English tea. Hence I always have cakes in the [...]

Les Miserable

If you have read my piece on the Lavoirs, you may well agree that they look bewitching in the summer sun, gleaming white linen, reflecting the rays of a French summers sun but can you imagine what it was like in the winter. Well imagine no longer Victor Hugo’s “les mis” captures the horrors of [...]

Lavoirs of the Auvergne

You are never far from the past in the Auvergne, it intrudes into the present in many ways, the small family farms, still maintained by a family, the grandparents herding the flocks as actively as the young repair fences. The lavoirs that exist in almost every village remind us rudely of times past. Beautifully restored [...]

Brocante season in France

The ‘vide grenier’ or ‘garage sale’ season is my favourite time, when they close all the roads leading into a village, or even a town, the locals put out tables in the street, and sell anything that they don’t want.
Market a definition

mar·ket (mär’kĭt) pronunciation
n.
1. A public gathering held for buying [...]

Audrey Tautou & secondhand fabrics

We were out and about yesterday searching Depot Vente and brocantes for interesting items to buy for the house, or add to Faded Grandeur my ebay shop. Well what a day, we found some lovely items, I will be posting some photos and history of some of them here on my blog, so keep an [...]