Chocolate factory and trip to Germany

In the town next to our village, there's a chocolate factory.  I've heard lots of great things about this place and sometimes you can actually smell the chocolate wafting up the hill when the wind blows in the right direction.

 With Gaby's impending trip to *Germany coming up, we thought it would be nice to buy some "local" chocolates for the family that she's going (gone now) to stay with.  
The above photo was taken outside their little boutique, cute isn't it?

 We bought a big box of dark chocolate for the family, and these yummy (I know because we bought some for us too) solid chocolate lollipops that are great for dunking in a hot chocolate or coffee...

Finally for her German friend, Lea, I found this small candy cookbook which has some surprisingly delicious sounding recipes and lovely photos to boot, and I just had to get the fraise Tagada's too...

* Gaby left for Germany this morning with most of her classmates from 5eme 4 (year 8) and some 6eme's (year 7) .  She isn't there long, just today, traveling by coach (eta 16:00) plus Tuesday and Wednesday and then back on Thursday, still better a couple of days than nothing at all.

Lunch at Septime

Six long weeks ago, Alain booked us a table at Septime, and finally we went for lunch there this Tuesday.
I'm not the type of person to take photos of what I eat and here's no exception, sorry, you've just got a view above of the open kitchen, where the food is cooked and plates dressed, I've never seen as many cooks and assistants working so well in such a small area.
You can eat a three course lunch menu here for just 24 euros (or was it 26?) or you can choose the 5 course carte blanche, which is what we went and my gosh, we were so happy we did. To begin with we ate white asparagus with lardo di colonnata, to sum it up in one word, I'd say divine.
Next was a an poached egg cooked at 63°c and a mushroom bouillon, yummy.
Third up, a perfectly cooked hake but I not so amazing (too powerful) écume. 
Fourth, it was lamb, three ways, I wouldn't dare to describe it here, it was just heavenly.
And finally, we had HAY ice-cream...glace au foin....with rhubarb. Very subtile and surprisingly good, great to finish with.
Super restaurant, amazing food, vegetables cooked to perfection.   A bit noisy if you want a romantic place to eat, better go to Astrance, otherwise these two restaurants, when it comes to taste, are just awesome.

mini hike near Saint Martin la Garenne

 Saturday we went for a a mini hike with Marie-Kate and Alexis around Saint Martin la Garenne. We took a picnic and hoped the weather would hold up for a couple of hours.
As you can see  the above photo a poster with Francois Hollande on it, it's election time here and he's through to the second round the 6th May, Hollande verses Sarkozy...funny thing was, there were posters of all the candidates apart from M. Sarkozy, someone had pasted a FN one on top of his.

 The plan was to complete a 14.7 km hike, but the weather soon proved to be difficult. It might look as if the weather was nice and sunny above, but oh no, the wind had whipped up and it was freezing.  Good place for a picnic but too cold, so on we went.

 Monkey Alexis, just before swinging from this branch and falling on his bottom

 There was a few great vantage points to watch birds

 And just before the rain came bucketing it down we found refuge in this bird observatory point. Underneath you can see the view we had from there.

We managed to do seven rainy, windy, and darn cold and sometimes sunny kilometers and we loved it and plan to get out and explore more soon.  Next visit, probably Monet's house and gardens which are less than 30 km from where we live.

It's great to be eight

Yesterday was Marie-Kate's 8th birthday and also the first round of the presidential election which didn't please Miss Eight one bit.

After our run (with Alexis) and then voting (after shower) we spent time preparing MK's birthday lunch that she had chosen and baking her birthday cake.

She had a 3DS from us, two games (mamie & papy and grannie), some pretty clips from Gabrielle, books, a watch and a archery set from us too.   

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.

Charlotte's in Granada

After a weekend of stress due to Charlotte and the fact that she just decided she didn't want to go on holiday to Spain after all(organized via Alain's work). Harsh words were spoken my Miss 16, but the storm blew over and yesterday we took her to Orly to meet the group of 8 girls she would be spending her holiday with.  She was happy to know there were only girls, and felt even better when they were all similar ages (15,16 and 17).  We even bought Miss C a new telephone at the last minute because in her hotel there was going to be wireless internet.  
Charlotte's suitcase was filled with shoes and boots and many unnecessary items that sixteen year olds like Charlotte can't live without, but I did manage to get her to leave her ipod dock/radio at home and her enormous(and expensive) headphones too.  

Silly girl only took one thin jacket though, let's hope that the weather in Granada is better than what we are experiencing here in the Yvelines.


We received a first update from the organizer's website today it seems that all is well, the 6 girls including Charlotte who are staying in an hotel, love it, and they have had their first three hours of Spanish lessons today and all went well.  They should be visiting Granada as I'm typing this and tonight it Flamingo night.

Easter cooking with the children

 We have spent a lovely calm weekend with the children, cooking a lot, talking, reading together, it's been great.  Alain and I managed to run twice (6km and 10km) and with our average pace is above 10km per hour, which for us, was unimaginable for us a couple of months ago.   
Gabrielle and Marie-Kate have been wanting to help more cooking, especially since Alexis went away on school camp.  Saturday night they made some delicious veal cordon bleu's (no photo).  On Sunday they prepared ricotta, strawberry and raspberry trifles.

To finish of the weekend, Alain and Marie-Kate made fresh pasta (dough and all) for their very first time

While they cut more tagliatelle, I made a makeshift rack using a broom stick and tea towels to hang them over and dry a little.  Yes, the lengths vary, but the tagliatelle with mushroom ragu sauce was excellent.