Showing posts with label St Sornin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St Sornin. Show all posts

Monday, September 16, 2019

16/09/2019 A day of photos that I forgot last time........ and a visit to Cognac on 1 September.

Maximum temperature today 32C, minimum 17C.  Very dry.  17km/h North-easterly winds with gusts up to 27 km/h. 

Thank you to everyone for the comments on the previous blog.

Celebrating my birthday; 19 August.

As above, our friends Michael and Mary from the USA.

Driving home - the weighbridge at Marillac-le-Franc...

The scales as above.

Same town as above, Eglise Saint Didier...

As above.

The lavoir at St Adjutory with M and M.

Resistance Memorial at Chasseneuil sur Bonnieure...

A little closer.

Old houses in Cognac 1 September...

A sundial on a wall...

Waiting for the gates to open for a tour of Chateau Royal de Cognac, the home of Baron Otard Cognac...

Waiting in the reception...

The smell in the cellars is amazing 😉 
Note: the spiders that live down here have got so used to the alcoholic fumes that they cannot live out of the building!!!!

Tasting the amazing cognac after a fabulous tour.
Highly recommended, both tour and cognac.

Finally standing on the bridge in Cognac looking down the Charente river.

As I said previously blogs are going to be very hit and miss for the remainder of this year.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

06/11/2018 Autumn colours and out to lunch - celebrating two birthdays.

Maximum temperature today 14C, minimum 8C.  Rain on and off all day and raining now. 5mm of rain measured this morning; 25km/h South-Easterly winds with up to 49 km/h gusts. 
The sunset a couple of nights back which I had not downloaded.

Driving to the restaurant today trying to get autumn colours avoiding reflection on the windscreen and raindrops!... 

As above.

Driving back home our neighbours walnut tree.

Arriving at St Sornin.  Remember I showed you the pictures of over 800 houses with roofs destroyed during a storm in July, still many are covered with plastic sheeting.....

Some are being worked on...

The restaurant has scaffolding but we were told they still have no date for when work might be done.

The place was packed so luckily we had booked for 4, the two men were celebrating. Jim on the left had his birthday yesterday and Nigel has his on Saturday.
Excellent value €14 each for a 4-course meal including wine and coffee.

The Euonymus back home is showing its autumn colours.

The Acer has silver seeds.

The Stinking Iris (Iridaceae foetidissima) has bright red seeds.

Surprisingly there are still buds on the climbing rose.

The lavender that I grew from seed is still flowering while the old plants were over weeks ago.

Good to see there are still some bees around and a few cosmos for them to collect pollen from....

As above

Last but not least a visitor to the window sill.
Eurasian blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus).
I love the feather definition and the single raindrop on its tail.




I have at last updated my bird blog HERE

Monday, August 20, 2018

20/08/2018 This was supposed to be yesterday, but now a belated birthday post.

Maximum temperature today 29C, minimum 16C.  Dry; 13 km/h North-easterly winds with up to 33 km/h gusts. 

We have been cutting up more of the (very hard!) old oak platform stripped out of the barn and another batch of plums has been picked, de-stoned and put in the dehydrator.  Yesterday we took the day off 'work' as it was my birthday and we went out for lunch at yet another new restaurant!

Getting there but still masses to do!

We left home yesterday late morning and we had to pass through Saint Sornin on our way to Le Petit Restaurant at Rozet.  The violent hail storm that hit the town on 4 July has well and truly left its mark.  July and August are holiday months in France, so most builders and roofers are "en vacances'.  Every roof in the town has been smashed and they are for the most part still protected by plastic; so sad for the village, which has so many pensioners living in it.
Plastic sheeting in a number of different colours but mostly black...

as above...

as above...

I feel so sorry for the people here...

Next to the war memorial...

even the church did not escape the from the massive 'tennis ball' hail storm.

Further down the road, even surrounding villages were no better off...

This one looks as if work has begun,  though maybe they are also still waiting for the return of their roofers from holiday.

Travelling on. the sunflowers are now bending their heads.

Passing through the pretty village of Grassac, which was beyond the storm-damaged area.

 
I love these leafy and almost deserted roads! 

Crossing over old narrow bridges, after the disaster in Italy one wonders how safe these little bridges now are, though they have stood the test of many centuries ...


The TomTom then decided to take us on a shortcut and we had a couple of kms through this state forest on not the best of roads; it was pretty though!  Thankfully we did not meet anyone coming the other way!

Arrival at the restaurant - a converted house...

As above...

Walking down the entrance path, I loved this multi painted psychedelic pig and the old plough.

We chose to sit outside as the weather was so good.

The menu.

My starter - tarte d'oignon et fromage de chevre. (Onion tart with goats cheese).

Nigel had pate Grand-mere.

He followed this up with Boeuf du Limousin (cooked blue as usual and how we like it!) which he said was very tender.

and I had Selle d'agneau (lamb) which was also delicious.
 So as not to upset my Canadian follower, David, I will refrain from showing you the cheese platter and the yummy dessert 😉

The Dutch family on the next table kindly offered to take this photo of the two of us...

While Nigel took the photo of the birthday lady.  Cheers, this was a delightful pineau rouge before the rose wine which we had with our meal.

For those that might be interested in the alterations to the barn we have just bought, I have posted the photos on my other blog My Life in the Charente.



My bird blog

has been updated HERE