Birthday tart and cake

This weekend we ate lots of good food and made the most of the weather, even if it was a little too hot for all of us.  Alain made dinner Saturday night, some new fish fillets and some amazing courgette cakes.  And to finish off with, Alain made, with MK's help a yummy strawberry and mascarpone tart (from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries) for a very belated birthday treat for me.

Sunday, it was my turn to cook.  This time to celebrate Alain's 38th birthday and Oliver's 18th.  This was my first opportunity to bake a cake for either birthday, so this one, for once, was to be a shared cake.  Once again, this was another recipe taken from Nigel Slater's book, a lemon and pistachio cake with crystallized rose petals, that Gaby helped me with.

 It was a fabulous cake, even if I do say so myself.  Moist and buttery, filled with pistachios and covered with some lovely lemon icing, more pistachios and of course, those rose petals.

 Really this cake was just awesome and has been a main subject of conversation even since, just the thought of it makes my tummy rumble....

Guess what?  At this very moment, I'm baking another Nigel Slater cake, not the same, no that was has to be kept for very special occasions, no, this time it's a frosted orange marmalade cake...can't wait to taste it.

Bye Bye Old Friend

Yesterday I said goodbye to an old friend, one I will never see again, but it's for the best, my car has served me well, bought it in 2001 aged one year old and now aged twelve it was time to part.  
Since moving here, my children haven't required my services at a taxi driver (primary school a stones throw away and school buses for older children) and Alain rides his bicycle to local train station and catches a high-speed bus...yes bus, not train, to work.  If he goes away, which is usually often, apart from at the moment, his company pay for taxis for airport runs et cetera.  
We were keeping my little car for either Oliver or Charlotte, the first to pass their driving test, however, it seems the chance of Oliver passing his test in the next six months is highly unlikely and in the meantime the 206 hasn't been feeling so well.  The speed counter broke a couple of months ago, there has been a oil leak (tiny) for ages and the final straw came last week, when I noticed the exhaust pipe nearly touching the floor!  The exhaust was fine, good condition in fact, it's just that the brackets holding in place had snapped.  I managed to get under the car and fix it to the frame with a heavy duty elastic cord with hooks on the end, our old neighbour Robert, would have thought this a crazy idea, but it worked.
The car has gone to "troc" (they sell and we split the sale price, not sure if it's 50/50).  My car needs fixing first but then should sell quickly.  I just hope it goes to a good home, and if we can get a couple of hundred euros back, now that would be wonderful.

Now we are a one car household. We are looking into the idea of either buying an electric bicycle or small scooter/ motorbike but there's no rush.  One car less, means a saving of 400 euros per year in insurance, we're happy with that. Finger-crossed it sells fast.

Busy Time...One tree less

I've been meaning to blog for ages, but just never managed to find enough time.
Alain has been and still is very busy at work. Last week he was in Holland and this week Oslo.
I went to see my mum for a couple of days just over a week ago, she's getting stronger and back to a usual self.

While I was away, Alain cut Mr H's favourite tree down (hope he doesn't come to see his old garden some day soon)

Photo taken during an hail storm

The tree in question wasn't supposed to grow so big and was rare for this to happen, so Mr H told us when we bought the house.  It suffered in the 1999 storm and had to be lifted and held in place ever since.   I didn't like it, mainly because of the endless falling red berries and leaves and not to mention the bird poo (yes we had our table under here because it was the old flat part of the garden which was also near the house.  Luckily for me, Alain didn't care for the tree either and this is what the area looked like after being cut.

Boring and empty yes, but flat and perfect for our new wooden patio, which incidentally is almost finished and I don't regret cutting the tree down one bit (photos to come later this week).

Harry Potter and Trail Running and Alexis

 While the children were on holiday from school, I lost my temper once with Alexis.  He'd lost and/or had broken most of a box of expensive artist crayons.  I wouldn't have minded if he'd actually used them to draw/colour with, but he didn't. Anyhow, something strange happened afterwards.....Alexis started to read, yes, probably to get back into my good books, he actually picked up Happy Potty 1 and read it, amazing for a little boy who doesn't read much.
It doesn't end there, when he had finished the first book, he asked for the second (had to buy it in the end, could find it, even though it's somewhere here).
On Friday, Alain bought the third one home and Alexis' reading it.  He came home from school, had a snack, and he's in his room.  
Lets hope that after Harry Potter, he'll be more tempted to read other books, he's fussy so it should be fun.  He likes funny books and he's read all of Roald Dahl's, he liked A Diary of a Wimpy Kid and those Monsieur Scknock books, well he loved them.

Another new passion of Alexis is running with us.  Sunday we ran just 6 kilometers (remember last time Alexis cracked after 5 kilometers)...well this time, he cracked again, this time after the first kilometer...too muddy he said, he slipped all over the place and needs some trail shoes if he's going to continue.  We managed 6 kilometers, but it was a little slow (because of Alexis and a little, the mud).
Who got the muddiest?  

10 km with Alexis

Alexis has been wanting to come for a run with us for a while and yesterday he did.  The plan was to run 10 km but with the possibly to cut it short if Alexis became tired.

Alexis was fast, too fast and Alain and I ran faster than we would usually, especially me, normally the first five kilometers are the worst for me mentally. 

There was a 1 km up hill stretch to conquer  around the 7km mark and I hate this bit, but ran better than usual and once at the top I realized that Alain and Alexis were lagging far behind and when I looked at my watch I knew I could finish in less than an hour so I left them to it and ran.

I did it, 10,91km in 59.22 minutes. 

You can't see on the photo, but my trainers are really dirty from a ankle deep muddy puddle that I couldn't avoid. 

Alexis and Alain arrived back about ten minutes later, Alexis was tired out, but wants to run again but he'll keep to 5km in the future.

Off again...Kristiansand

The problem with Alain's business trips is they happen a lot and he tells me at the last minute, like today, well at 11.23 via email. He's just left and it's tough on family life and children's routines....Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself.

Hubby Back and Montmartre

He's back and I'm so happy...he arrived Thursday morning and he took me to Paris.. We planned on eating in a Japanese restaurant, but it was closed (only open in the evenings) so

before walking up to visit the Sacre Coeur

We ate here. A new restaurant, that was really a great place to eat and not expensive to boot.

 This was the view of Paris when we left the Sacre Coeur, a bit cloudy, lots of tourists, but great view.

Oh yes, behind Alain (on the first photo), you can see tents that had been erected, they were for the la fêtes des vendanges, that was due to start the next day:(

Où se trouve mon mari...

I just received a photo from Alain, who took this photo of the FPSO Usan, probably from his Flotel nearby..;Mooring hasn't begun even though he's been there since Wednesday:(

Home alone with five children

You see on the map the small triangle with Usan FPSO, well that's where my husband is, well will be as of tomorrow morning. Tonight he's in a secure Total compound until he flies by helicopter in the morning to join Usan. And twelve mooring lines later, he'll be back. This could take weeks though, so I'm just going to have to get on and cope the best I can.

Center Parcs

For the last holiday weekend in August we went to Center Parks which is a about one hour and a half's drives from here. I have to say, I was surprised how good it was. The kids loves Aqua Mundo, tree trekking and just having the freedom to do as the wished in a safe environment .

I forgot to pack the charger for my camera so I haven't got many photos (however Charlotte has) so this is all for now.

Gaby took a couple of nice photos of ducks that were just outside our cottage.

And Alain turned 37 and we couldn't bake a cake because I can't work with microwaves, so Charlotte made some pancakes

Ok she didn't manage to toss this one perfectly, but she got there in the end and after our awful meal in a center parks restaurant, I much prefer to eat one of her pancakes any day.

Near miss and stair walls and ceiling finished

The highest part of our stairs is about 5 meters high and Alain decided he could paint up there just using a ladder. Well he could and did it with a stretch, problem was is our landing had been waxed over the last 37 years and I'd not finished getting it all off, hence it was still slippy

Well you can guess what happened, the ladder slipped and Alain was two centimeters away from going ladder first through an 150 year old window. he was saved the black strip of wood on the photo, the one just in-front of the window.

It goes without saying, he isn't allowed up a ladder for a while.

Oh yes, we've finished the stairs, still kept with hardwick white, with a little arsenic and railings for the paint work. Today I'm sanding "again" the stairs and then paint and varnish and we'll be done.

Kitchen Update

the little compotier on the table was my thrift shop find this Sunday

We really thought that we would have got further on with our kitchen renovation this weekend, but sadly that wasn't the case. I think we were far too optimistic and now it seems like we have at least two more weekends of work. I can do some things on my own during the week, like clean and sand down the walls, ceiling, and woodwork, I can also maybe get the ceiling painted before the weekend, however, I can't do the electricity nor the plumbing work needed (two water pipes to cut that run through the kitchen plus a drain pipe for the bidet that was in out bathroom that Mr H had taken out ages ago). I could have maybe started painting (after plastering and screeding a bit all over) but Alain bought the wrong paint for the walls... Instead of buying Dimity in modern emulsion from F&B, he bought eggshell which is for woodwork and not walls. Crazy thing was that it was the sales woman at the shop who insisted on him that eggshell was the right finish for our walls. He's going back there today with a flea in his ear and I wouldn't like to be in the place of who ever he meets in F & B's.

Anyhow, as Alain is off for week for a safety offshore course in Marseille, some things will have to wait. I probably will paint our thrift buffet while all alone dealing with difficult teenagers and helpful younger ones.

We still have enough space for an Ikea cupboard with those doors that pull out just next to our butcher's block.

A bit of a mess, but it's only temporary

Oh yes, that awful double oven was so heavy, we needed a trolley to move it, now we are left with a gapping hole in the wall (I've got that to sort out too) . Maybe a list would be useful.

Need to decide where to put this. Either above stove(stainless steel panel to be placed before above) or above the butcher's block.

Changing the subject, the rain this weekend has certainly revived my flowers which is good cause that's one less thing to think about. I really thought we'd have more rain in l'Ile de France than we used to have in Sanary, but that's not the case up to now, so go figure!

And the sun is back again today too, whilst in Sanary it's raining.

107 days later

When we moved in here, there was a stair lift that Mr H had fitted for his wife. It went up right to the top floor and our children wanted to keep it cause it was more fun sliding down on its frame than using their tired legs.

Mr H had it fitted in 2001, his wife died soon after, sad. A constant reminder for him.

Anyhow, dear Alain said he'd take it down (save Mr H the worry, and the cost...he was quite a scrooge..400euros) so he bought an electric saw, good excuse to add to his collection of power tools. There was a little problem of electricity ( the electricity needs some work), so what does Alain do? He yanks the wires out from the lift, just like that, I didn't see it, I just heard the bang....

Well, he's all chuffed, because now he can saw, he cut the frame into manageable pieces and pops them outside. It's all still there, hidden, down some stairs that lead to a creepy cave. What was crazy was the weight of the actual chair, I couldn't lift it and nor could Alain, well barely. He needed helpful (rarely) teenage son to help.

Anyway, after the BANG, the light in the toilet didn't work, and it wasn't just the bulb, it was the fuse. Alain is an engineer. The fuse was difficult to work out, it took him 107 days to work it out, many teenager sleepovers and a party took place in between this time.

Oliver asked if he could invite a couple of friends to play xbox, well, a few turned out to be 25 and most stayed the night, they drunk a bit, used our lightless toilet( a lot) without too much mess, just one teenager who was sick all over a giant rug that Mr H left, a white one.

I still keep forgetting that I can now switch on the light, used to not having it, but Alain's feeling good about it and probably planning a task that could take even longer, if that's possible