Local(ish) Library

Marie-Kate's apple and salted *butter caramel crepe

We live in a small village outside Paris.  In the village, there's a town hall (like everyplace in France), a nursery and primary school, a 12th century church that was partially destroyed by the English in the hundred year war and a couple of parks, tennis pitches et cetera... My bugbear is that there's isn't a baker's shop, and how I love French bread...So we make it most of the time or go the nearby town that has at least  six boulangeries! That's another story though because there's a place I like to go often and always have and that's libraries. There's one here in our bakerless village and it's really great but is only open for two hours on a Wednesday and a Saturday, so I hardly get down there.  However nearby, over on the other side of the Seine there's a mediatheque and this place is amazing and beats hands down our old media library in Sanary.

My dandelion (pissenlit..love the French word for this) jam crepe

It's got everything Sanary has and more, because here there's a creperie/salad bar and tea shop all in one. It's a great incentive to get the children to read books.


Talking about books, you can borrow up to twenty five books at a time on one card....enormous.  We bought sixteen books back for everyone but Charlotte and Marie-Kate is ready to go back again this weekend.


*salted butter caramel crepes here are to die for...the dandelion one was great too but I love love love anything caramel.

15km Black trail cross country skiing at Le Desert with Charlotte and Alexis

Alexis, Alain and Charlotte, the Mont Blanc is somewhere behind

 The Friday before we left the Chartreuse we took Charlotte and Alexis to Le Desert and thought we's try the black trail which is 15 km long and fairly hard.  We were told at the station that if we found it too difficult there was a passage at a point onto the red trail to it short, so we were prepared, just in case. 
Alexis was brave, climbing up over 100's of meters were tough for him, and Charlotte was ready to cut off the black trail, but we carried on and once we were at the highest point, we didn't see Charlotte or Alexis much, as they like descending (and falling) fast, I mean Alexis just shoots down and doesn't brake at all and Charlotte barely.
Whereas I'm a cautious type and I slow myself down a lot.  Alain who learnt to ski in Norway with telemarks is a great skier but was jolly tired at the end.
I have to say the first half of this trail is amazing (before it meets with the red one), the views were sometimes fantastic and snow was good (not frozen), the sun shone and we had the trail to ourselves, really just us four.
Afterwards we treated ourselves to a couple of hot sugary cappuccino's and the children had some jam rissoles that I never got chance to taste as they were quickly eaten by two happy but exhausted children.

Still in La Chartreuse Le Pic de la Cochette 1618m

Last Wednesday Alain, Oliver and I planned to snowshoe up onto the Le Pic de La Cochette. This is a fairly short (just over 3 km up) but  a difficult path to climb with a denivelation of 400m+.
So kitted out with our snowshoes and our poles (thanks to Decathlon) and my runtastic pro app running we started out.   Unfortunately super unfit Oliver aged 17.5 didn't get further than 800 meters....too hard he said, so with car keys in hand a little money he left us to it.
The snow was deep in places and it's supposed to take an average of two hours to reach the top but I love going up more than coming down so I was up in 54 minutes and Alain a little (6 minutes) later. 
The view was just breathtaking and I could have stayed up there all day, but had to be back for lunch with the children and besides I'm scared of heights  so this is as close as I dared to go to the edge.  On the above photo you can see the Mont Blanc in the distance which is about 80 km away (I think)

 Alain made it and was rewarded with a couple of sliced of yummy saucisson...Did you know that you burn lots of calories snowshoeing! 

 The descent was fast and Alain was more at ease going down than  up and I had to run (with snowshoes) to keep up with him.  Thirty three minutes later we were down.  Poor Oliver was in the car playing with his phone and had (and still has) no idea what he missed.

Two Danish thrift shop chairs

We saw three chairs that were reserved the Saturday before going on holiday, we liked them straight away, didn't need them though and besides they were reserved till 6pm that evening. It was a cold weekend, inside and out and the temperature in the thrift shop was minus fifteen on Saturday, so they weren't many people.  We hedged our bets and thought it would be worth our while  going  back Sunday morning and see if they were still there, hoping that the freezing cold weather would have put the people off going back to pick them up...and as you can see from the photo that's exactly what happened, all three chairs were there.  

We were told they were Danish. We bought two, sad really to leave one, but I thought if the people who originally wanted all three came back, at least one chair would be a little consolation for them.  

I'm no expert but I'd say they date from the 50's, they are in amazing condition and the wood and how it's shaped is just beautiful.  

One is in the sitting room, and the other in the kitchen and the two chairs were 20 euros each.

Photography from the Chartreuse by Norman C

Norman (who owns the gite "La Grange" along  with his wife Gabrielle) is very artistic who takes great photographs. This time I brought two of his photographs home.  They were taken close to where he lives and he edited these two to give them a kind of spooky feel. 


In April some of his photos will be on exposition, I'll have to find out where exactly but I think it's Chambery.
I did have a problem with the size of the photos and the Ikea standard frames I bought. There was a gap between the mat board and the photo, so I had a choice, get some custom made matting boards, in other words wait to hang them, or paint the back board white or black, black in this case and hope that the contrast between the photo, the paint colour, the mat board and frame worked.   I like it.  The photo above isn't that good (I'll try and get a better shot) but in-situ they are just fine.

Cross Country Skiing au Desert d'Entremonts

 Although it's just our 4th year staying at La Grange, it's our 5th year skiing here, it's a great station with a lovely family friendly atmosphere and a super café/restaurant for you've skied..or before too.  

Today Alain took Marie-Kate on the green run and I did the blue one with Alexis and Gaby  while Oliver and Charlotte did the red one

There was an exposition by a local artist in the restaurant and on the last day we bought six of his funny and sometimes cheeky sketches (the children got one each), this one is ours that's in our kitchen now. All of his work is based on an owl theme, and he plays lots with words.

February in the Chartreuse (4th stay at La Grange)

If there's a place we love going back to each year, it has to be La Grange situated in a tiny hamlet in the Chartreuse region of French Alps. 

The gite is amazing, with space for twelve and it's just so cosy. Norman and Gabrielle, the owners, who live next door are just adorable and we just love these guys.

See the photo above, this is what Gaby did when she arrived, I think you can see that there's a girl and a dog sculpted in the snow.  She also sculpted a couple sitting on the bench, but I'll have to get some photo's off Alexis' camera as this couple was the talk of all the hamlet, giving Gaby quite a reputation.

Here's the view from the gite, we'd just arrived and the children went out and re discovered the garden and fields around about.

 The second day it snowed a little, but this was the only time it did.  Before hand, Alain and I had managed to trail down to the nearby village (St Pierre d'Entremonts) and buy some ( to die for) muffins from the local bakers (just for those it's worth going back for).  The way back was tough though, three and a half kilometers with over a three hundred meter denivelation....guess what though, we did it again a couple of days later, faster and carrying back meat for the butcher's shop too.