I just wanted to share with you a moment which I think sums up life in France.
Last night Manny and I were invited by a friend at work to watch the final of the world cup on 'the large screen'. The house was just outside Clisson in a small village surrounded by Muscadet vineyards.
Hence lots of muscadet was flowing (as well as a lethal local punch). The man sitting next to me worked on the vineyard and his whole family were there cheering France on as well as a couple of neighbours, who all mingled in nicely with the School of Design crowd. The World cup was being shown on a projected screen on a wall in an open-air courtyard area of the partly renovated house.
To start we ate a delicious paté made of a particular sea herb (couldn't catch the name') with spinach and other ingredients which was delicious, I had made a tomato and goats cheese tart, then taboulé with melon, followed by Merguez sausages cooked over a BBQ of dried vine stalks.
There was then a stunning sunset to top the evening.
The match was a little disappointing for France, but the evening was just perfect.
Perhaps you have some memorable experiences to share which sum up where you live, what's special about your region, or were special for another reason.
Swanx
1 comment:
I feel I have to say a few words about Exmoor which is close by where I live.
You know you are entering Exmoor when, after following narrow lanes through the lushest green scenery, you come across a cattle grid, put there to stop the animals from venturing off the moor. Once you rumble over the grid you know you have entered a different world. The scenery changes dramatically. The trees and the lushness fall away and you drive along primitive roads over gorse covered hills with grassy banks to either side which are clipped to bowling green perfection by the roaming herds of sheep and their frisking lambs. The rounded yet somehow rugged hills roll away into the distance and you know that this bleak landscape is unchanged from Neolithic times.
Birds of prey circle over Dunkery Beacon and in the distance you may glimpse a group of Exmoor ponies or very rarely a herd of deer. The wind rushes over the hills and brings strange calls to your ears. I once saw a curlew crying on a stump, its long elegant beak curving slightly downward towards the tip.
If you are lucky you may take the wrong road and find yourself at Tarr Steps, a stone-age clapper bridge that has been in use for thousands of years. There is always the slight frisson that if you venture too far, into the Chains for example, that you may never be seen again.
Exmoor, there is nowhere else like it.
Post a Comment